Bio-inspired automatic shape formation for swarms of self-reconfigurable modular robots

We present a bio-inspired, self-reconfiguration approach to automatically building user-specified, three-dimensional structures from modular units. In this paper we focus on providing the ability for a multitude of simplistic mobile robots to self-organize their relative positions, thereby, allowing them to arrange into a variety of spatial configurations. We introduce a new mobile molecular robot with polymer or triad interactions acting among individual molecules, taking the responsibilities for embodying its structure and determining where further units can legally be attached and detached. We design a hybrid mechanism for the shape formation. The attachment and detachment of each robot is realized by morphogenetic properties of molecular cells, and the shape formation is controlled by cellular automata. Development of morphological features such as the formation of fine particles, cracks in particles, hollow particles, good or poor replication of the original catalyst particle shape, and the evolution of the porous structure of polymer particle are used as illustrative examples.