Omni-Directional Connector for Self-Reconfigurable Robots

Robots are used for various industries and must adapt to various environments. For this purpose, machine learning has been extensively studied as a method to output motion adapted to the environment. However, if the robot’s hardware is not adaptable to the environment, the range of the robot’s motion using machine learning is limited. Therefore, this paper focuses on self-reconfigurable robots that change their own shape to adapt to various environments. Most self-reconfigurable robots are assembled with connectors oriented facing in a specific direction; however, their assembly is time-consuming because of the required alignment of the connectors. Therefore, this paper presents an omni-directional connector for self-reconfigurable robots and proposes a fast assembly.