This is an excellent introduction to the basic concept, as well as to what [...]]]> If you are looking for one single overview of SRCMR, look no further, Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robot Systems Challenges and Opportunities for the Future, by Mark Yim, Wei-Min Shen, Behnam Salemi, Daniela Rus, Mark Moll,  Hod Lipson, Eric Klavins, Gregory S. Chirikjian, is it!

This is an excellent introduction to the basic concept, as well as to what has been done and what remains to be done. It also introduces you to many of the major institutions and researchers in the field.

What I like most in this paper is the “bucket of stuff” concept.

The endless, and I do mean that literally, possibilities that are offered by being able to assemble even relatively few units of just some basic types into whatever you want at any given time, is easy to underestimate.

I belive that if researchers can present a working, basic set of modules and  a development enviroment, many creative people are going to take it from there and assemble absolutely incredible inventions that cannot be foreseen.

And even all those inventions might not be “The Big Thing”, that might instead be the freedom to reassemble your units whenever you want to whatever you want. That freedoom is indeed revolutionary.

Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robot Systems

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This paper was an interesting read. I think it shows how far the research on SRCMR has come, that we can now start to refine the design.

I [...]]]> Paper, FE No;1:Reusable Electronics and Adaptable Communication
as Implemented in the Odin Modular Robot
By Ricardo Franco Mendoza Garcia, Andreas Lyder, David Johan Christensen and Kasper Stoy

This paper was an interesting read. I think it shows how far the research on SRCMR has come, that we can now start to refine the design.

I think that it is interesting to see that the same concepts that make SRCRMR interesting in the general sense, works in the design of the units themselves as well. It is really interesting how division of general and specific systems and components can keep the flexibility of the development platform and significantly speed up development. It also shows that on one level a real world SRCMR system must be a hybrid between homogeneous and heterogeneous.

There is also a video of the proof-of-concept experiment but I blogged separately about that.

I certainly would not miss the presentation of this paper at ICRA2009