An underactuated self-reconfigurable robot and the reconfiguration evolution

Biological cells and tissues have diversified behaviors, which are supported by active tissues and passive tissues. Inspired by this, an underactuated self-reconfigurable robot was designed with passive joints and active joints. The inclusion of passive joints can offer benefits not only on cost but also on functionality. This paper presents the architecture of the underactuated self-reconfigurable robot, a computational model of reconfiguration planning and reconfiguration scheduling. An experiment is given to demonstrate the reconfiguration process. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.