Translation based Self Reconfiguration Algorithm for 6-lattice Modular Robots

Modular robot network architectures are experiencing growing popularity. The problem of automatically reconfiguring a set of modular robots into a given target shape presents a real challenge to distributed computing. Many works on the subject restrict the nature of the constructed target forms. The bolder approaches focus on reducing the number of overall required movements. In this work, we propose a distributed asynchronous self-reconfiguration algorithm allowing to distribute the effort made by each robot to reach the final shape. This makes it possible to extend the life of the network of micro-robots. We compare our TBSR algorithm with C2SR self-reconfiguration algorithm using VisibleSim simulator. The obtained results show that globally TBSR outperforms C2SR except for rare cases. The TBSR algorithm allows reducing the number of required moves up to 17%. Besides, the ability of TBSR to balance the number of moves over the modular robots makes that the maximum number of moves per robot is reduced up to 40%.