Introducing a standardized electronics architecture for multi-modular self-reconfigurable mobile robots

In this paper we provide the fundamentals and a proof of concept for a completely new approach in multi-modular self-reconfigurable mobile robotics. The architecture described consists of two main parts being strongly interconnected. The first part is the development of an architecture based upon a high-speed fully switched Ethernet-network. This approach contrasts the way existing platforms were designed. The use of a switched Ethernet-network, instead of commonly used bus-systems, depicts a paradigm change in this field of robotics. The second part stipulates a strict decomposition of the robot module into various submodules. A powerful mainCPU, running a μClinux, represents the central entity of the architecture. It is supported by several peripheral microcontrollers, which perform low-level tasks and data preprocessing only. The submodules are treated as blackboxes, being independant from each other, only loosely coupled by a local SPI-bus. This results in a more robust and manageable system. As the number of submodules is not restricted, the architecture is very flexible. The employment of standards like POSIX and Ethernet severely eases the developmental process and further research.