Design and realization of autonomous decentralized object transfer system: magic carpet

The attempt to realize a "magic carpet"-an array of actuators on which a ball, for example, can be moved to a specified position-driven by autonomous decentralized type control algorithm is proposed. The algorithm is evaluated mainly by computer simulation and trial manufacturing of experimental setup. Due to the recent development of micromachine technology, we can integrate a lot of very small decentralized modules, each of which consists of sensor, actuator and electronic circuit. However, control algorithm of such systems have not yet been developed enough. To avoid complicated wiring problem of communication network, it is assumed that the module should exchange information only with neighboring several modules. The proposed algorithm is divided into two steps. One is the macro rule based on the concept of "field" which controls the general behavior of the carpet. Another is the micro rule to control each module in a robust manner. Some basic simulations on macro control and experimental results on micro control are shown.