Plan Rehan O'Grady

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



Misc Ideas

  • Spend 1/2 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.