Self Assembling Robot
In order to successfully plan and execute self-assembly between multiple robot parts we need to know the position and orientation of the them in respect to each other.
As advancements in manufacturing continue to make sensors smaller, faster and cheaper it is has become increasingly appealing to have embedded vision on each robot pieces, which was exactly our approach. (If you are working half day with smart cameras and half day with modular robots, it would make sense to put a smart camera on the modular robot and have a cool robot to play with all day long and keep both bosses happy!!)
The end result is a robot that can re-assemble itself when it is kicked apart.
A version of this video has around one million hits on youtube.
In addition, this project has had a lot of publicity in the media.
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Before we become brave enough to kick the robot we tried the gentle dis-assembly approach.
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