Task-oriented inverse kinematics of modular reconfigurable robots

Consisting of a set of modules with the same connection interfaces, different configurations of modular robot can be assembled for different tasks, with high adaptation in complicated environments. Because of the variational task and changeable configuration of modular reconfigurable robots, it is very hard to solve the kinematics of all the configurations by traditional algebraic methods. To solve this problem, we present a method to automatically generate the kinematics of modular reconfigurable robot. We first introduce our modular robot system, including the description of the basic modules, the description of topology and the generation of configuration, we then discuss about the task-oriented inverse kinematics with the mixed iteration method and evaluation method. The configurations of modular robots for biped pole-climbing and for manipulating are implemented, with them inverse kinematics as two examples of application of the presented method. The results confirmed the validity and suitability of the algorithm for serial type modular reconfigurable robots.