Self-Reconfigurable Robots and Digital Hormones
Speaker:
Wei-Min Shen
Abstract:
Self-reconfigurable modular robots are metamorphic systems that can autonomously change their logical or physical configurations (such as shapes, sizes, or formations), as well as their locomotion and manipulation, based on the mission and the environment in hand. Because of their modularity, versatility, self-healing ability and low cost reproducibility, such robots provide a flexible approach for achieving complex tasks in unstructured and dynamic environments. They are well suited for applications such as search and rescue, reconnaissance, self-assembly, inspections in hazardous environments, and exploration in space and ocean.
The construction and control of these robots, however, are very challenging due to the dynamic topology of the module network, the limited resource of individual modules, the difficulties in global synchronization, the preclusion of centralized decision makers, and the unreliability of communication among modules. This talk presents a distributed and reliable control architecture and related algorithms for these challenges. The approach is inspired by the biological concept of hormones (thus the name digital hormones) and it provides a unified solution for metamorphic systems self-reconfiguration/assembly, locomotion, and manipulation. Modules are modeled as autonomous agents free from globally unique identifiers and they can physically connect and disconnect with each other and can communicate via content-based messages. In particular, the talk will present: (1) a particular self-reconfigurable robot called SuperBot; (2) a general representation for self-reconfigurable systems; (3) distributed solutions for task negotiation, topology-dependent behavior selection and synchronization; (4) distributed detection and reaction mechanisms for topology changes and message loss; and (5) demonstrations of unique, online, self-reconfiguration capabilities on the SuperBot robots for assembly, bifurcation, unification, behavior shifting, and shape-alternations. An application for self-assembly in space may also be presented when time permits.
Reading material can be found at htt://www.isi.edu/robots/, click on publication and download journal papers there. Two typical introduction movies can be found that website under the title 2007 Movies.
Bio:Professor Wei-Min Shen is the Director of Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory, the Associate Director of the Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems, and a Research Associate Professor in Computer Science at University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. under Nobel Laureate Professor Herbert A. Simon from Carnegie Mellon University in 1989. Dr. Shen has more than 20 years of research experience. His current research interests include self-reconfigurable and metamorphic systems, autonomous robots, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Life Science. He has over 100 publications in these areas. He is the recipient of a Silver-Medal Award in 1996 AAAI Robotics Competition, a World Championship Award in 1997 Middle-sized RoboCup Competition, a Meritorious Service Award at ISI in 1997, and a Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award at USC in 2003. Dr. Shen is the author of Autonomous Learning from Environment (W.H.Freeman), a 360-page book on how machines learn from their environment based on surprises. He is the PI for the SuperBot project for developing a modular, multifunctional and self-reconfigurable robotic system for space application, a co-inventor of CONRO, and the inventor of hormone-inspired distributed and decentralized control for self-reconfigurable systems (US Patent #006636781). He has served as chairs and committee members for international conferences and workshops in Robotics, Machine Learning, and Data Mining, and as editorial board members for scientific books and research journals. His research activities have been reported by leading scientific journals such as SCIENCE (9/26/1997 and 8/8/2003) and NATURE (5/28/2004), and media press such as CNN, BBC, PBS, Fox, Discovery, and other newspapers and magazines in the world. His research has been supported by NSF, AFOSR, DARPA, ARO, and NASA.
