Plan Rehan O'Grady

Long Term - Phd Thesis

Theory

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?

Practice

1. Parametrised group size selection mechanism (2,3,4,..)
   • Initially in a non-adaptive way
   • Maybe in an adaptive way
2. Parametrised Shape distinction mechanism
   • Initially binary parameter - linear / blob (non-linear)
   • Initially non-adaptive
   • Maybe adaptive
   • Maybe further parameterisable - control over what 'blob' looks like
3. Application of above two mechanisms to hill passing problem
   • Comparison of adaptive linear approach and blob approach

Short Term (conference paper writtern by end March 2006)

Goal

Conduct new experiment which builds on previous functional self-assembly experiment. Publish new results in conference (probably Ants2006). Combine new conference paper with ecal2005 paper and publish results in journal.

Experiment

Environment

• Similar to previous ecal2005 functional self assembly experiment.
• Except use three different hills to prove adaptive rotation mechanism. | / \

Task

• Two robots must navigate over hill towards target.
• When they encounter hill, they use adaptive rotation (adaptive to orientation of hill) to avoid toppling.

Methods

• Reuse existing functional self assembly controller. (Published work)
• Develop adaptive (to hill orientation) control. (New work)

Trials

• 2 robots: 20 trials on each hill type. = 60 total.
• 3 robots (maybe): some trials needed to show blob behaviour doesn't change with different hill orientations.

Misc Ideas

• Spend 1 or 2 weeks helping Lausanne disassemble / repair robots
  • I get to learn more about robotic hardware
  • Lausanne gets work done faster with extra pair of hands.
  • Iridia gets skill transfer on hardware disassembly / repair.