A Hierarchical Modular Architecture for Reconfigurable Mobile Robots

Abstract

In this paper we investigate a common issues associated with growth of computational complexity of mobile robots navigation algorithms. It is also shown that a realization of a particular robot application is usually slowed down because of lack of interchangeable and unified robot components. We propose a hierarchical modular architecture for reconfigurable mobile robots as a solution to these problems. In this architecture a mobile robot considered as a combination of modules, which in turn consist of more simple units -sub-modules. Each submodule incorporates a low performance microcontroller and is responsible for only basic functions. A set of sub-modules are then combined into a moduletransport platform, robot leg, arm etc. Besides of this one of the main goals of the study is to provide a framework based on this architecture for a rapid robot prototyping with modules that can be assembled in a plug-and-play way. In this paper we mostly consider hardware modules and prototypes that have been already manufactured. We also briefly investigate a robot transport module structure for a motion on a rough terrain in an unstructured environment.