Image:UKSC2008 Rovers PHari-KThiyagarajan.pdf

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UKSC2008_Rovers_PHari-KThiyagarajan.pdf‎ (file size: 229 KB, MIME type: application/pdf)

Final round of the rover design competition for 2008 UK Space Conference

Phase I: Andrew Bacon - Angarayan Sundarakaltharan - Prabhu Hari and Karthik Thiyagarajan

Abstract

Moon rovers have come a long way embedding new degrees of robustness, self-organization and decentralization. The exploration of the moon demands high parallelism and intelligence due to understandable constraints of energy and terrain. In this paper, we propose the integration of Self Reconfigurability and Swarm Intelligence for enhanced functional response in dynamic operational scenarios. However these varied concepts exist independently and have never been used in conjunction. The proposed rover has these two radical concepts integrated on a design level. Stochastic Diffusion Search is used as the algorithm for its inherent characteristics of efficiency in self-localization and pattern matching. These rovers work in swarms or intelligently reconfigure themselves to form a new functional unit suiting various application requirements. In the absence of locomotors, the polymorphic robots are limited to few forms of locomotion. They might be worm-like movement, loop structure, T and H walking styles. Although these movements are highly capable of traversing any terrain, there is a lack of fast mobility for individual modules. This architecture provides the mobility for individual modules and thus the design reflects characteristics of robustness, flexibility and graceful degradation.