ckBot: Modular robot assembles itself after high-energy encounter

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 3:48 AM Posted by Awesom-o

One of the many projects at the University of Pennsylvania's Modular Robotics Laboratory (ModLab) is the construction of ckBot which is capable of autonomously assembling itself after destruction from a high-energy event. For the record (and as you can see from the video below,) high-energy event is the scientific term for kicking a robot. More specifically, the researchers describe their work as follows,

The Self-reassembly After Explosion (SAE ) problem involves a system putting itself back together after being exploded. Explosion in this context is defined as the rapid, randomized disassembly of a system from a high-energy event. Vision-based guided localization is used here for self-reassembly. Integration of various communication schemes (CAN-BUS, local IR) are incorporated at the various states of the reassembly sequence (e.g., localization, docking, walking)

Original article here:

http://smart-machines.blogspot.com/2008/04/ckbot-modular-robot-assembles-itse...

Video here :