Plan Rehan O'Grady

Approach

1. Design Experiment
2. Fix experiment (Confirmation from Marco)
3. Build Controller
4. Do Experiment
5. Publish

Long Term - Phd Theme

Explore aspects of functional self assembly.

1. Decision Process
   • Is self-assembly necessary
2. Structure
   • What is appropriate size for connected groups
   • What is appropriate shape for connected groups
3. Behaviour
   • What to do when connected (cooperative movement, transport, navigation, etc)?
4. Timing
   • When should swarm assemble?
   • When should swarm disassemble?

Short Term (~End March 2006)

Goal

Conduct new experiment which builds on previous functional self-assembly experiment. Publish results of new experiment and functional self assembly experiment together in journal.

Experiment

Environment

• Same as previous functional self assembly experiment.
• ?Robots started in a line one after the other - mimic ant trail?

Goal

• Large group of robots must navigate over hill towards target.
• If they encounter hill, they aggregate into several two sbot swarmbots (using group size selection mechanism)
• The two-sbot swarmbots separately navigate the hill into the target zone. (using adaptive swarm rotation to avoid parallel approach)

Methods

• Reuse existing functional self assembly controller. (Published work)
• Group size selection mechanism to form two sbot swarm bots. (Completely new work)
• Use adaptive swarm rotation mechanis to avoid parallel approach problem. (Previous unpublished work)

Medium Term (~September 2006)

Goal

Further experimentation to add body to Phd / publish.

Experiment

Goal

• Have sbots detect how difficult an obstacle is and form group size / group pattern accordingly.

Ideas

• Start in two sbot swarm configuration. Detect hole. If hole is two big, join with other two sbot team. Form 4 sbot line. Cross hole. Use adaptive swarm rotation throughout.