On Stochastic Self-Assembly of Underwater Robots

Varadarajan Ganesan; Mandar A. Chitre

RA-L 201614 citations

On Stochastic Self-Assembly of Underwater Robots

Abstract

We present a rule-based approach which incorporates a state machine in a novel manner to carry out self-assembly in underwater environments. The rules formulated along with the state machine govern the manner in which individual robots combine to generate shapes like a straight line, a `T' alphabet and a two sided pyramid. We analyze the factors that affect the time taken to complete self-assembly via simulations. Finally, we adopt a statistical dynamics approach to calculate the combination rates of the robots and show how it yields a Markov process model. We use the Markov model to predict the assembly process and show that it is similar to carrying out the full mechanics-based simulation.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{ral2016_onstochasticself,
  title = {On Stochastic Self-Assembly of Underwater Robots},
  author = {Varadarajan Ganesan and Mandar A. Chitre},
  booktitle = {RA-L 2016},
  year = {2016}
}