HoverBots: Embracing and Detecting Collisions Using Robots Designed for Manufacturability

ICRA 2018 Workshop: Swarms: From Biology to Robotics and Back, 2018

PDF thumbnail
(PDF, 57.3 MB )

Abstract

Collisions play a crucial role in nature. While some natural systems utilise collisions to achieve collective behaviours such as cell migration, most robot systems avoid them. There have been a few studies on collisions with swarm robots. Robot behaviours were collision dependent, however, physical collisions were still avoided. Robots detected close field objects with proximity sensors and accounted them for collisions. However, true collisions cause physical interactions amongst robots and their immediate environment; collision chains might even displace many robots at the time and possibly change the outcome of an experiment; approximating collisions neglects their physical impact on the real world. In this work, we introduce the HoverBot system. HoverBots are floating circuit boards capable of autonomous movement by energising their planar coils to interact with permanent magnets that are embedded into the arena surface. HoverBots embrace physical interactions with other robots or objects. We show how HoverBots utilise magnetic field readings from a Hall-effect sensor to detect collisions and briefly discuss how collisions could be used to map environments.


bibtex

@inproceedings{nemitz2018icra,
    AUTHOR     = {Markus P. Nemitz and Edwin Olson and Adam A. Stokes},
    TITLE      = {{HoverBots}: Embracing and Detecting Collisions Using Robots Designed
                 for Manufacturability},
    MONTH      = {May},
    YEAR       = {2018},
    BOOKTITLE  = {ICRA 2018 Workshop: Swarms: From Biology to Robotics and Back},
}