TY - GEN
T1 - Kilobot
T2 - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2012
AU - Rubenstein, Michael
AU - Ahler, Christian
AU - Nagpal, Radhika
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - In current robotics research there is a vast body of work on algorithms and control methods for groups of decentralized cooperating robots, called a swarm or collective. These algorithms are generally meant to control collectives of hundreds or even thousands of robots; however, for reasons of cost, time, or complexity, they are generally validated in simulation only, or on a group of a few tens of robots. To address this issue, this paper presents Kilobot, a low-cost robot designed to make testing collective algorithms on hundreds or thousands of robots accessible to robotics researchers. To enable the possibility of large Kilobot collectives where the number of robots is an order of magnitude larger than the largest that exist today, each robot is made with only $14 worth of parts and takes 5 minutes to assemble. Furthermore, the robot design allows a single user to easily operate a large Kilobot collective, such as programming, powering on, and charging all robots, which would be difficult or impossible to do with many existing robotic systems.
AB - In current robotics research there is a vast body of work on algorithms and control methods for groups of decentralized cooperating robots, called a swarm or collective. These algorithms are generally meant to control collectives of hundreds or even thousands of robots; however, for reasons of cost, time, or complexity, they are generally validated in simulation only, or on a group of a few tens of robots. To address this issue, this paper presents Kilobot, a low-cost robot designed to make testing collective algorithms on hundreds or thousands of robots accessible to robotics researchers. To enable the possibility of large Kilobot collectives where the number of robots is an order of magnitude larger than the largest that exist today, each robot is made with only $14 worth of parts and takes 5 minutes to assemble. Furthermore, the robot design allows a single user to easily operate a large Kilobot collective, such as programming, powering on, and charging all robots, which would be difficult or impossible to do with many existing robotic systems.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84864484760&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84864484760&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224638
DO - 10.1109/ICRA.2012.6224638
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84864484760
SN - 9781467314039
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
SP - 3293
EP - 3298
BT - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2012
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 14 May 2012 through 18 May 2012
ER -