Talk:Self-reconfiguring modular robot

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This is an area of considerable note. Reference: Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robot Systems: Challenges and Opportunities for the Future, by Yim, Shen, Salemi, Rus, Moll, Lipson, Klavins & Chirikjian, published in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine March 2007.

Molecubes

There was another version of molecubes that isnt self reconfigurable but it is reconfigurable and modular. It is on you tube some where, should that be mentioned under the molecubes section (eg "a succesor/precursor to this design is not".....)?Dalek9 (talk) 12:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

ANAT Robot added 9/30/09

Besides the advertising, is this even in the right place? It might be *manually* reconfigurable, but this article is distinctly supposed to only be about *self* reconfigurable devices. Also, despite being a modularized mechanism, it's not modular in the same context as the type of technology being presented and referred to in this article. I suggest moving it to a more appropriate and relevant article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.114.242.31 (talk) 18:19, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

ANAT Robot

The robot is actually sold and used in industry. It is completely able to self reconfigure depeding on artifical intelligence and a second shiftable axis added to the modules. This allows factories to switch good production or production methods without chainging machinery, however in actual industry, the price of the robot will significantly increase, and this is not usually not looked well upon, as factoies rarely switch good producion currently, as it is a completely new concept. The robots displayed can self-reconfigure if needed, however, i cannot possibly see how this article post can be seen as an advertisiement, besides the fact that its existance and uses are mentionned. The post fits just fine in this article, I am removing your warning, but if you want to take he time to make a page just for modular robots, i will be more then happy to add it there too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.98.246 (talk) 22:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Response to: ANAT Robot, its author, Wikipedia community, and re. removal of the dispute

1. The dispute seems to have been arbitrarily removed without proper review, a vote, expert input, or other form I desired and intended. How do I post a call to vote on the removal of a section of an ANAT Robot, as opposed to the entire article in general (e.g., speedy delete), that stays there for at least a month or so? That's basically what I was trying to do here.
2. Does the ANAT Robot possess the same attributes as the other forms of technological concepts involved in this article? In other words, does the scientific and technological community that "coined" or uses the phrase of the title of this article consider the ANAT Robot to fit into that same category? For example, is it scalable?
3. In the past there were articles on "Self Reconfigurable", "Modular Robotics", and "Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics." These three were all merged and eventually came to be referred as "Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics" (this article). If you want to call for the re-separation of those articles I'll support you on both that as well as placing a description of the ANAT Robot in the Modular Robotics article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.114.242.31 (talk) 08:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

OK Ill put the tag back up and we can have a vote. Does that sound good?--Coldplay Expert 10:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Either that or whatever the appropriate procedure for calling for an evaluation is sounds fine.76.114.242.31 (talk) 13:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

ANAT Robot

I invite your to carefully study the patent document US6686717 pertaining to our self-reconfiguring modular robot invention, and all our other patents in modular robotics. Our company, Robotics Design Inc., was the first pioneer into the use of modular AND self-reconfiguring modular robots in industry. An article by the Engineer Order of Quebec (OIQ) made in 1997 will provide interesting information on this technology, and is written in French at (http://roboticsdesign.qc.ca/Un%20Bel%20example%20d-innovation.pdf). Modules are scalable on size, and current sizes range from smaller linked modules in a snake-arm configurations to manipulate 150kg, to a soon to be released product from Robotics Design which can manipulate 1,200kg. They may use hydraulic, pneumatic and electric motors, and can disconnect and reconnect in different configurations, depending on the task they are needed for. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.53.107.197 (talk) 18:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Reason for Explanation of Difference Between Self-Reconfiguration and Self-Replication

Although there is nothing in the description or definition of self-reconfiguring modular robotics, or the individual words, that implies or suggests that self-replication is a feature, it seems prudent to clarify to avoid confusion between the differences. It is no more possible for a basic concept version of self-reconfigurable modules to become an out of control grey-goo that consumes matter and makes more self-reconfigurable modules, than it is for cars or coffee pots that also come off assembly lines to turn into grey-goo. Basic concept version self-reconfigurable modules simply don't work that way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.114.242.31 (talk) 04:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Attention needed

• Redlinks - need better links or articles creating?
• Check details and refs

Chaosdruid (talk) 02:28, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

ANAT Robot is "self" and "re"-configurable?

Can someone please explain to me why this one qualifies as "self" and "re"-configurable? It doesn't seem to fit the description given in the 4th paragraph:

By saying "self-reconfiguring" or "self-reconfigurable" it means that the mechanism or device is capable of utilizing its own system of control such as with actuators or stochastic means to change its overall structural shape. Having the quality of being "modular" in "self-reconfiguring modular robotics" is to say that the same module or set of modules can be added to or removed from the system, as opposed to being generically "modularized" in the broader sense. The underlying intent is to have an indefinite number of identical modules, or a finite and relatively small set of identical modules, in a mesh or matrix structure of self-reconfigurable modules.

I'd like to see something that explains how the ANAT Robot meets this requirement, or an example that demonstrates that it's capable of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.84.137.238 (talk) 07:20, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I hope you agree with me that the ODIN robot, the ANAT AMI-100, and ANAT AME-100 meet the definition of a "modular robot" as defined in this article. So it seems appropriate that when someone clicks on a link to "modular robot" or "ANAT Technology", whatever article that pops up should at least mention those robots.

In the past there was an article on the topic of "Modular Robot". Later, someone decided to merge several articles, including "modular robot", into this article, so "the article that pops up" when I click on "modular robot" or "ANAT Technology" is this "self-reconfiguring modular robot" article. Apparently someone thought that there was such a huge overlap between "modular robots" and "self-reconfiguring robots" that it made sense for one Wikipedia article to cover both categories.

As far as I can tell, the ODIN robot and a ANAT robot is not "self-reconfiguring", but I don't see that as a "requirement" -- apparently more than one person thinks that this article covers all modular robots and all self-reconfiguring robots, not merely robots that are both modular and self-reconfiguring.

Are you suggesting that maybe the title of this article should be changed to something more generic that more clearly indicates it covers all modular robots and all self-reconfiguring robots, not merely robots that are both modular and self-reconfiguring?

Are you suggesting that maybe these two categories of robots shouldn't be merged into one article, but perhaps we should split things up into 2 or more articles? If so, what titles would you suggest for those articles?

Or are you suggesting that when the majority of some category has some characteristic, but there are one or two exceptions, that Wikipedia should never mention those exceptional cases?

How can we make Wikipedia better? --DavidCary (talk) 17:35, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Lattice vs chain type

I think that the paragraph about the lattice and chain architecture should be revised, because it is somewhat contradictory. The paragraph claims that chain architecture can have only chain and tree topology, this is not correct because at least a loop is necessary to do self-reconfiguration. Moreover some chain architecture can have arbitrary many loops in their topology (for instance if one use the cubic modules in Polybot). In a system the ability to make one or many loops depends of the number of docking interfaces of the modules. For homogeneous system with at least two universal connectors, or two male connectors and two female connectors several loops are possible, otherwise only one loop can occur (for instance in Conro). Nevertheless I agree with the fact that chain architectures are able to reach any point in the space, while this is not the case for lattice systems. Therefore to have a consistent definition I think that the distinction between the two architectures should relies only on kinematical features and not on topology. The designation "chain architecture" remains ok since reaching an arbitrary point in space usually requires a chain of several connected units to have sufficient degrees of liberty.

Another problem is that the table that compares the systems uses the designations "mobile" and "hybrid" which are defined nowhere (hybrid is defined but in another context)

Therefore I would suggest to replace the paragraph with something like this:

• Lattice architecture have their units connecting their docking interfaces at points into virtual cells of some regular grid. This network of docking points can be compared to atoms in a crystal and the grid to the lattice of that crystal. Therefore the kinematical features of lattice robots can be characterized by their corresponding crystallographic displacement groups (chiral space groups). Usually few units are sufficient to accomplish a reconfiguration step. Lattice architectures allows a simpler mechanical design and a simpler computational representation and reconfiguration planning that can be more easily scaled to complex systems.

• Chain architecture do not use a virtual network of docking points for their units. The units are able to reach any point in the space and are therefore more versatile, but a chain of many units may be necessary to reach a point making it usually more difficult to accomplish a reconfiguration step. Such systems are also more computationally difficult to represent and analyze.

• Hybrid architecture takes advantages of both previous architectures. Control and mechanism are designed for lattice reconfiguration but also allow to reach any point in the space.

Notice that these definitions are consistent with the table, no change has to be made, except for the Molecube which has clearly an underlying (cubic) lattice, it should be changed to hybrid.

I prepared a small figure to illustrate the lattice architecture concept with the system MicroUnit.

12 modules of the homogeneous lattice system MicroUnit assembled together shown with corresponding grid and docking points network

Any suggestions ?Wikipedist (talk) 02:19, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Modular robot and self-reconfiguring modular robot

Suggest treat the modular robots and a section or article for Self-reconfiguring modular robot. Modular robotics article must be the base. And its needed to understand the self-reconfiguring modular robot--Lagoset (talk) 09:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)