CONRO: Towards deployable robots with inter-robots metamorphic capabilities

Metamorphic robots are modular robots that can reconfigure their shape. Suc h capability is desirable in tasks such as earthquake search and rescue and battlefield surveillance and scouting, where robots must go through unexpe cted situations and obstacles and perform tasks that are difficult for fixe d-shape robots. The capabilities of the robots are determined by the design specification of their modules. In this paper, we present the design speci fication of a CONRO module, a small, self-sufficient and relatively homogen eous module that can be connected to other modules to form complex robots. These robots have not only the capability of changing their shape (intra-ro bot metamorphing) but also can split into smaller robots or merge with othe r robots to create a single larger robot (inter-robot metamorphing), i.e., CONRO robots can alter their shape and their size. Thus, heterogeneous robo t teams can be built with homogeneous components. Furthermore, the CONRO ro bots can separate the reconfiguration stage from the locomotion stage, allo wing the selection of configuration-dependent gaits. The locomotion and aut omatic inter-module docking capabilities of such robots were tested using t ethered prototypes that can be reconfigured manually. We conclude the paper discussing the future work needed to fully realize the construction of the se robots.