Acta Mechanica Slovaca 2012, 16(3):6-11

Self-Reconfigurable Modular Robotic System

Zdenko Bobovský^1*, František Trebuňa¹, Juraj Smrček²

¹ Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Applied Mechanics and Mechatronics, Letna 9, 042 00 Kosice, Slovakia

² Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Production Systems and Robotics, Němcovej 32, 042 00 Kosice, Slovakia

Theory of mechanisms with variable structure in robotic applications of self-reconfigurable structures is one of directions of robot development. At our faculty is in development self-reconfigurable modular robotic system capable of rebuilding a structure according to requirements of the current task. We have designed an algorithm based on transformation matrixes (TM) , an accuracy and a functionality was verified in mathematical programs MathCad® and than in a first application created in Matlab®. Plotting the position of the local coordinate systems (LCS) in the area at the move of the one of the modules and comparing with the tracks from SolidWorks-CosmosMotion® it was found that the curve along which LCS moves are identical and the TM is properly designed to determine the exact position of each LCS. The TM was implicated in the application written in C# and designed to simulate the behaviour of the self-reconfigurable modular system. The application allows changing the connections between modules, which are then automatically converted to the new TM for new kinematics structure. Mathematical notations of TM for each sub-module allows to the connection of sub-modules according to requirements of the current task of the system and still have position and orientation vectors to any LCS at a momentary kinematics structure.

Keywords: Kinematics, self-reconfigurable, metamorphic, modular, robotic system

Received: June 16, 2012; Accepted: August 11, 2012; Published: October 31, 2012  Show citation