Self-Organisation of Locomotion in Modular Robots

Modular robotics is a kind of antithesis to classic robotics. Instead of building one complex monolithic robot, many simple, identical ones are combined to form a larger, complex one. Of course those simple units alone are far from being able to cope with even the most simple task achieved by a monolithic robot. However by giving them the capabilities of interacting with each other, we hope they will be able to achieve complex tasks with a high degree of robustness and adaptation.

The aim of this project is to study self-organisation capabilities in modular robotics and more particularly, how good locomotion behaviours may arise from the collaboration of a group of homogeneous and randomly connected modules.