A novel autonomous self-assembly distributed swarm
flying robot
Wei Hongxing
a,
*
, Li Ning
a
, Liu Miao
b
, Tan Jindong
c
a
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
b
Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Shanghai 200050, China
c
Biomedical Engineering Department, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
Received 4 September 2012; revised 15 October 2012; accepted 9 November 2012
Available online 28 April 2013
KEYWORDS
Distributed control;
Flight control system;
Flying robot;
Self assembly;
Swarm intelligence
Abstract Swarm intelligence embodied by many species such as ants and bees has inspired scholars
in swarm robotic researches. This paper presents a novel autonomous self-assembly distributed
swarm flying robot-DSFR, which can drive on the ground, autonomously accomplish self-assembly
and then fly in the air coordinately. Mechanical and electrical designs of a DSFR module, as well as
the kinematics and dynamics analysis, are specifically investigated. Meanwhile, this paper brings
forward a generalized adjacency matrix to describe configurations of DSFR structures. Also, the
distributed flight control model is established for vertical taking-off and horizontal hovering, which
can be applied to control of DSFR systems with arbitrary configurations. Finally, some experiments
are carried out to testify and validate the DSFR design, the autonomous self-assembly strategy and
the distributed flight control laws.
ª 2013 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of CSAA & BUAA.
1. Introduction
Nature always gives humankind knowledge and inspirations.
Through distributed collaboration or assembling themselves
into different collective structures, insects like ants and bees
get able to transport objects that are too large for any single
one of them or to bridge gaps that will stop them separately
as individuals. Swarm intelligence embodied by these social in-
sects when they cooperate with one another in a large scale has
been brought into robotic research by scholars and become an
attractive topic in the robotic academic community.
Swarm intelligence has many manifestation types, among
which self-assembly is regarded as the most practical, critical
and typical pattern. Self-assembly usually refers to autonomous
organization of components into certain patterns or structures
without human intervention.
1
In the field of swarm robotics, a
group of identical robots can build different robotic structures
through self-assembly, which provides stronger functionality,
more sensitive perception, higher stability and better robustness.
In many applications, autonomous self-assembly among robots
lays necessary foundation for accomplishing complex tasks that
are impossible to fulfill by any single individual robot of them.
Most existing swarm robots are mobile platforms with lim-
ited mobility on the ground.
2–4
However flying robots like
UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) which are frequently used
on occasions like military spying, rescue in ruins, aerial
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 82338271.
E-mail addresses: weihongxing@buaa.edu.cn (H. Wei), liningitr@
gmail.com (N. Li), threewater@me.buaa.edu.cn (M. Liu), tan@utk.
edu (J. Tan).
Peer review under responsibility of Editorial Committee of CJA.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, 2013,26(3): 791–800
Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics
& Beihang University
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
cja@buaa.edu.cn
www.sciencedirect.com
1000-9361 ª 2013 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of CSAA & BUAA.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2013.04.005
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.