Group Dancing Mobile Flower Robots with Moving Mechanism, Mobility and Localization Functions

Recently, the diverse robots with flower shape have been developed for use as interior, HRI, performance, and home appliance. In this research, we proposed new type mobile flower robots which have flower-type design, mobility, and localization. Especially, the flower shape robot was designed to mimic the swaying of the branches and the blooming of the flowers. The branches and the flowers were actuated by tendon mechanism. And, the flower robots have the mobile platform which consists of three-wheels with the steering ability, respectively. The mobile platforms of the flower robot can locomote to the desired direction and track to the desired path. The localization of multi mobile flower robot was based on the smart floor using passive RFID tags and the extended Kalman filter to estimate of location(x, y) under nondetection of RFID tags. RFID tags which are equilateral triangulation grid pattern are distributed under the surface of the smart floor and each of RFID tags is able to present the unique information of location(x, y). In the experiment system RFID tags are mainly used for identifying location of the mobile flower robot. The extended Kalman filter is used to estimate the location(x, y) of the mobile flower robots when the robots are middle of tags or out of the range of RFID tags. In addition, the heading (theta) of mobile flower robot is estimated by the angle sensor. Finally, by using the motion of the branches and flowers and the mobility of the flower robots, the group dancing of the mobile flower robots was demonstrated. These group dancing mobile flower robots with the moving mechanism, the mobility, and the localization functions can be used for a public performance and an exhibition.