An Online Gait Adaptation with SuperBot in Sloped Terrains

Teawon Han, Nadeesha Ranasinghe, Luenin Barrios, and Wei-Min Shen. An Online Gait Adaptation with SuperBot in Sloped Terrains. In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO 2012), Guangzhou, China, December 2012.

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Abstract

Among the different types of robots, modular and self-reconfigurable robots such as SuperBot have less limitations than their counterparts due to their versatility of gaits and increased dynamic adaptability. This results in a highly dexterous and adjustable robot suitable for many environments. This however, usually comes at the expense of a necessary human observer required to monitor and control the robot manually resulting in a waste of power and time. Thus, an intelligent system would be indispensable in optimzing the behavior and control of modular and self-reconfigurable robots. This paper presents an Intelligent Online Reconfiguration System (IORS) which through a combination of learning and reasoning, increases the efficiency in control and movement of the modular and self-reconfigurable robot called Superbot. Using this system, Superbot is able to learn and choose the best gait automatically by sensing its current environment (e.g., friction or slope). As a result, the IORS implementation in SuperBot achieves: 1) correct slope gradient sensing, 2) best gait learning to traverse different slopes, and 3) rational decision making for choosing the best gait.

BibTeX Entry

@InProceedings{han2012-An-Online-Gait-Adaptation-with-SuperBot-in-Sloped-Terrains,
  abstract	= {Among the different types of robots, modular and self-reconfigurable robots such as SuperBot have less limitations than their counterparts due to their versatility of gaits and increased dynamic adaptability. This results in a highly dexterous and adjustable robot suitable for many environments. This however, usually comes at the expense of a necessary human observer required to monitor and control the robot manually resulting in a waste of power and time. Thus, an intelligent system would be indispensable in optimzing the behavior and control of modular and self-reconfigurable robots. This paper presents an Intelligent Online Reconfiguration System (IORS) which through a combination of learning and reasoning, increases the efficiency in control and movement of the modular and self-reconfigurable robot called Superbot. Using this system, Superbot is able to learn and choose the best gait automatically by sensing its current environment (e.g., friction or slope). As a result, the IORS implementation in SuperBot achieves: 1) correct slope gradient sensing, 2) best gait learning to traverse different slopes, and 3) rational decision making for choosing the best gait.},
  address	= {Guangzhou, China},
  author	= {Teawon Han, Nadeesha Ranasinghe, Luenin Barrios, and Wei-Min Shen},
  booktitle	= rob12,
  month		= dec,
  title		= {An Online Gait Adaptation with SuperBot in Sloped Terrains},
  year		= {2012}
}