Motion Planning for a Modular Self-Reconfiguring Robotic System

In this paper, we address the issue of motion planning for a bipartite class of modular self-reconfiguring robotic system (I-Cubes) that is a collection of active elements providing reconfiguration (3-DOF manipulators called links) and passive elements acting as connectors (cubes). The links, capable of attaching/detaching themselves from/to cubes, can position and orient the cubes.  

Current solutions for motion planning and reconfiguration of I-Cubes include multi-layered planners that divide a given problem into tractable sub-problems to be evaluated using heuristic methods. The system implementation, its representation in simulation, search algorithms resulting from this representation, and simulation examples are presented.