High-Dimensional Area of Acceptance Using Discrete Methods

Physical connectors with self-aligning geometry aid in the docking process for many robotic and automatic control systems such as robotic self-reconfiguration and air-to-air refueling. This self-aligning geometry provides a wider range of acceptable error tolerance in relative pose between the two rigid objects, increasing successful docking chances. A new, more discrete flooding method for analyzing …

Modular Robot Connector Acceptance by Configuration Space Analysis

Attachment and detachment between modules is critical for modular robot reconfiguration, and is a key design area for these systems. By re-purposing the interpretation of a well-known motion planning tool in configuration space obstacles for its encoding of contact geometry, we have developed a method for determining a metric of the region of error tolerance …

X-Face

Docking and undocking are common activities for robots (modular robots in particular). The relative frequency of this operation behooves us to ensure reliable alignment under uncertain conditions. We present a new face geometry that is numerically superior to existing alignment geometries. This geometry is intended for two-dimensional reconfigurable robots.