S-bot mobile robot

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Image:Sbot mobile robot.jpeg

The s-bot is a small (15 cm) mobile robot developed at the LIS (Laboratory of Intelligent Systems [1]) 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 Wikipedia editor Stéphane Magnenat (nct)) 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.

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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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Technical details

Image:Sbot mobile robot gripper closeup.jpeg

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General

  • 12 cm diameter
  • 15 cm height
  • 660 g
  • 2 LiIon batteries
  • 1 hour autonomy moving
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Control

Image:Sbot mobile robot passing step.jpeg

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Actuators

  • 2 treels
  • turret rotation
  • rigid gripper elevation
  • rigid gripper
  • 3 axis side arm
  • side arm gripper
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Sensors

  • 15 infrared sensors around the turret
  • 4 infrared sensors below the robot
  • position sensors on all degrees of freedom except gripper
  • force and speed sensors on all major degrees of freedom
  • 2 humiditiy sensors
  • 2 temperature sensors
  • 8 ambient light sensors around the turret
  • 4 accelerometers, which allow three-dimensional orientation
  • 1 640x480 camera sensor. Custom optic based on spherical mirror provides omnidirectional vision
  • 4 microphones
  • 2 axis structure deformation sensors
  • optical barrier in grippers

Image:Sbot mobile robot by night.jpg

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LEDS

Image:Sbot mobile robot passing gap.jpeg

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Special abilities

S-bots can connect to other s-bots to create a bigger structure known as the swarm-bot. To do so, they attach together using their rigid gripper and ring. An s-bot has sufficient force to lift another one.

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Integrated software

The s-bot features a custom Linux port running the Familiar GNU/Linux distribution. All sensors and actuators are easily accessible through a simple C API.

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External links

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References

  • Mondada, F., Guignard, A., Bonani, M., Bär, D., Lauria, M. and 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. PDF BibTeX
  • Mondada, F., Pettinaro, G. C., Guignard, A., Kwee, I., 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. PDF BibTeX
  • Marco Dorigo, V. Trianni, E. Sahin, T. H. Labella, R. Gross, G. Baldassarre, S. Nolfi, J.-L. Deneubourg, F. Mondada, D. Floreano & L. M. Gambardella (2004). Evolving Self-Organizing Behaviors for a Swarm-bot. Autonomous Robots, 17 (2–3): 223–245. PDF BibTex
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