Simulation Research on Reconfiguration Locomotion Planning for a 3-D Self-reconfigurable Robot

Self-reconfigurable robot consists of numerous modules. It has various configurations and multiform locomotion modes. How to describe its configurations and how to plan its locomotion are difficult problems. To solve these problems, a novel description of modules and their surroundings was presented and modular locomotion rule base was established. Based on the rule base, a reconfiguration locomotion planning algorithm combined heuristic search with limited-horizon search was proposed for a self-reconfigurable robot HitMSR. In heuristic search second selecting method was adopted to minimize search space. Simulation results indicated that the algorithm can generate reconfiguration locomotion series automatically and efficiently in complex environments for 3-D self-reconfigurable robot with any initial configuration