Simulation Analysis of Morphology Formation on Locomotion of a Linear-Cluster Robotic System

Abstract

This paper deals with the morphology formation on the locomotion of a linear-cluster robotic system which is composed of linearly connected multi-autonomous mobile modules. The equations of motion of the linear-cluster robotic system are derived under dynamic interaction with its physical environment and computer simulations are performed about its locomotion on two-dimensional friction plane. When the heading module successively changes its own driving force direction sinusoidally and the other modules have simple rules of locomotion determined according to the direction of interaction force acting from a neighboring module, it is found that a certain region, where a linear-cluster robotic system stably forms a progressive wavy line morphology, exists with respect to the amplitude and period of the driving force direction of the heading module. Furthermore, the natural freqencies and modes of the system are calculated by applying eigen value analysis to the linearized equations of motion. It is clarified that frequency response property of the wavy line morphology corresponds to natural vibration of the cluster robotic system.