hTetro: A tetris inspired shape shifting floor cleaning robot

This research work presents the development of a novel tetris inspired reconfigurable floor cleaning robot - hTetro, utilizing the hinged dissection theory of polyominoes. The developed robot platform is capable of transforming between any of the seven set of one-sided tetromino morphologies according to the perceived environment with an objective of maximizing the coverage area. Experiments were performed across two different settings to systematically compare the coverage area performance of the developed hTetro robot and a commercially available fixed morphology robot platform. Results indicate significantly higher coverage area performance in the case of hTetro due to its ability to assume optimal morphology in relation to navigating environment.