A distributed coordination system for modular reconfigurable robots

Reconfigurable robotic systems are made from a large number of independent modules that can be used to form various robot shapes. Consequently the robots have the capabilities to optimize their configurations to suit different tasks and environments. This reconfigurability needs not only appropriate module structures, but also corresponding communication and control systems to coordinate the modulespsila behavior. This paper presents a distributed coordination system that supports multipoint to multi-point communication and combines a set of distributed algorithms for accomplishing global tasks in a modular reconfigurable robot. The system allows discovering the number of robotic modules dynamically, solving task conflicts by integrating priority scheduling and FIFO algorithm, collaborating modulespsila behaviors to fulfill a designated task, and achieving distributed behavior synchronization.