S-bot mobile robot: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:47, 1 December 2011

Revision as of 07:48, 29 December 2011

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[[Image:Sbots.jpg|thumb|S-bot mobile robot.]]

The '''s-bot''' is a small (15  cm) [[Differential wheeled robot|differential wheeled]] (with additional [[Kégresse track|tracks]]) [[mobile robot]] developed at the LIS (Laboratory of Intelligent Systems [http://lis.epfl.ch/]) at the [[EPFL]] in [[Lausanne]], [[Switzerland]] between 2001 and 2004. Targeted to swarm robotics, a field of [[artificial intelligence]], it was developed within the Swarm-bots project, a Future and Emerging Technologies project coordinated by Prof. [[Marco Dorigo]]. Built by a small team of engineers ([[Francesco Mondada]], [[André Guignard]], [[Michael Bonani]] and [[Stéphane Magnenat]]) of the group of Prof. [[Dario Floreano]] and with the help of student projects, it is considered at the time of completion as one of the most complex and featured robots ever for its size. The s-bot was ranked on position 39 in the list of [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/robots.html “The 50 Best Robots Ever”] (fiction or real) by the [[Wired (magazine)|Wired magazine]] in 2006.

== Purpose and use of the s-bot ==

This is a research robot, aimed at studying team work and inter-robot communication. To do this, the s-bots have several special abilities:

* Using their gripper (red in the photos), they can connect together. Then they can, for instance, pass over gap and steps where a single robot would have failed.

* Using their integrated [[force]] [[sensor]], they can coordinate to retrieve an object to a certain ___location without the use of explicit communication. This is the way [[ants]] bring preys to the nest.

Of course, all other sensors and actuators, also found on other robots, can be used to do team work such as food foraging.

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=== General ===

* 12  cm diameter

* 15  cm height

* 660 g

* 2 [[LiIon]] batteries

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* 2 temperature sensors

* 8 ambient light sensors around the turret

* 4 [[accelerometer]]s, which allow three-[[Dimension|dimensionaldimension]]al orientation

* 1 640x480640×480 [[digital camera|camera]] sensor. Custom optic based on spherical [[mirror]] provides omnidirectional vision

* 4 [[microphones]]

* 2 axis structure deformation sensors

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=== LEDS ===

* 8 x× RGB [[Light-emitting diodes]] around the turret

* red [[Light-emitting diodes]] in grippers

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== References ==

* [[Francesco Mondada|Mondada, F.]], [[André Guignard|Guignard, A.]], [[Michael Bonani|Bonani, M.]], Bär, D., Lauria, M. and [[Dario Floreano|Floreano, D.]] (2003) '''SWARM-BOT: From Concept to Implementation'''. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2003, IEEE Press. pp. 1626-1631 1626–1631. [http://lis.epfl.ch/publications/856.pdf PDF] [http://lis.epfl.ch/bibtex.php?ID=364 BibTeX]

* [[Francesco Mondada|Mondada, F.]], Pettinaro, G. C., [[André Guignard|Guignard, A.]], Kwee, I., [[Dario Floreano|Floreano, D.]], Deneubourg, J.-L., Nolfi, S. and Gambardella, L.M., Dorigo, M. (2004) '''SWARM-BOT: a New Distributed Robotic Concept'''. Autonomous Robots, special Issue on Swarm Robotics, Volume 17, Issue 2-3, September - November 2004, Pages 193 - 221. [http://lis.epfl.ch/publications/swarmbot-hardware-final-lr.pdf PDF] [http://lis.epfl.ch/bibtex.php?ID=365 BibTeX]

* [[Marco Dorigo]], V. Trianni, E. Sahin, T. H. Labella, R. Gross, G. Baldassarre, S. Nolfi, J.-L. Deneubourg, [[Francesco Mondada|F. Mondada]], [[Dario Floreano|D. Floreano]] & [[Luca Maria Gambardella|L. M. Gambardella]] (2004). '''Evolving Self-Organizing Behaviors for a Swarm-bot'''. Autonomous Robots, 17 (2–3): 223–245. [http://lis.epfl.ch/publications/swarmbot-control-lr.pdf PDF] [http://lis.epfl.ch/bibtex.php?ID=395 BibTex]