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Modular Robots

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the which-module-plays-tony-hawk-3 dept.

levin writes "An article in the latest issue of IEEE spectrum discusses modular robots--robots made of small, identical components or modules. These robots can slither, roll like a tank tread, inchworm, or crawl like a spider. The idea is that modular robots will be not only cheaper to build because the modules are all the same, but will be more able to repair themselves (by shedding damaged modules). Even cooler, each of the 5cm cube modules in Xerox PARC's polybot sports its own PowerPC 555 and 1mb ram."

5 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Expensive? by Marx_Mrvelous · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmm.. the more that each module has to do, the more "expensive" that module becomes. Would these be more expensive, both in energy and $$, than just having specialized robots?

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    1. Re:Expensive? by inerte · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hmm.. the more that each module has to do, the more "expensive" that module becomes. Would these be more expensive, both in energy and $$, than just having specialized robots?

      Maybe. But the cool thing of modular design (such as in OOP) is reuse of components. You could define a 'walk' module, reusing in several different goals. And you would only need to engineer once this 'walk' module, thereby saving a lot on Research/Development, and on the machines that build the modules on factories.

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  2. Possibilities. by Hiro+Antagonist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This opens up quite a number of doors in the robotics industry; as each new module can [potentially] add processing power to the chain -- making the robot even more capable. Furthermore, as long as the interfaces between modules are kept consistant, it would be possible to engineer special modules for specialized tasks, which only adds to the versatility of the robot.

    It's kind of like having industrial-grade legos.

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  3. Spliting and Merging by regen · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Something that they really don't talk about in the article is spliting and merging robots. They talk about reconfiguration of a single robot, but I think spliting and merging with a group of robot would be very interesting.

    Imagine a robot being able to break a portion of itself off and send it to perform a sub task. Imagine two robot getting together to cooperate on a task by combining and spliting apart again once the task was completed.

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  4. Power requirements? by PantyChewer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They talk about systems of up to 1 million of these modules. 1 million processors is gonna suck up a hell of a lot of power not to mention the motors etc. Its gonna generate a lot of heat too, where is the power for these things supposed to come from if they are supposed to be used for plant exploration and stuff?