Abstract
Sensors play important roles in automatic systems; smart systems have to be equipped with smart sensors. PolyBot, a modular self-reconfigurable robot developed at the Palo Alto Research Center, is designed with a rich set of sensors in each of its 5 cm-cubed modules. These include infra-red (IR), accelerometers, potentiometers, force, and touch sensors. These sensors are used: to determine the current state of the system and its environment; to obtain the six degree-of-freedom offset between two docking plates for automatic reconfiguration; to select the right gait for locomotion; and to trigger different behavior modes in response to different terrain conditions. Sensor computations are computational methods that, given raw sensor data, extract or deduce the state information about the system. This paper discusses two types of sensor computation, forward computation and inverse computation and focuses on two interesting sensor computations in PolyBot: IR 6 DOF ranging and accelerometer 2 DOF orientation.
Formerly Xerox PARC
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Everett, H.R. (1995) Sensors for Mobile Robotics: Theory and Applications. A K Peters, Ltd.
Yim M., Duff D. G., Roufas K. (2000) PolyBot: a Modular Reconfigurable Robot. In: International Conference on Robotics and Automation IEEE, New York, 514–520
Will P., Castano A. and Shen W-M. (1999) Robot Modularity for Self-Reconfiguration. In: SPIE Sensor Fusion and Decentralized Control in Robotic Systems II, Boston, 236–245
Fukuda T., Nakagawa S., Kawauchi Y., Buss M. (1989) Structure Decision Method for Self Organising Robots Based on Cell Structures-CEBOT. In: International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, 695–700
Roufas K., Zhang Y., Duff D., Yim M. (2001) Six Degree of Freedom of Sensing for Docking Using IR LED Emittors and Detectors. In: Rus S., Singh S. (Ed.) Experimental Robotics VII, Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences Springer, 91–100
Accelerometer Data Sheet http://www.analog.com/productSelection/pdf/ADXL202E.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Zhang, Y., Roufas, K., Eldershaw, C., Yim, M., Duff, D. (2003). Sensor Computations in Modular Self Reconfigurable Robots. In: Siciliano, B., Dario, P. (eds) Experimental Robotics VIII. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 5. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36268-1_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36268-1_24
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00305-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36268-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive