The Collective Self-reconfigurable Modular Organism (CoSMO)

In this paper we will present the CoSMO platform, a new mobile modular self-reconfigurable robot (MSR) platform which we developed within the two European projects REPLICATOR and SYMBRION. Compared to other MSR platforms, this platform possesses huge computational capabilities and it exhibits a large communication bandwidth between connected modules. Furthermore, its modules have the ability to share energy among each other and locomote in every main direction by their own. Due to the mechanical design, different organism topologies and motion behaviors enable CoSMO to be flexible to different tasks and to adapt to unforeseen changes in the environment. Nevertheless, the size and the mass of the robot modules are still comparable to other platforms. In this paper, we will give an overview of the architecture of the CoSMO platform, which is in its final stage of development. In particular, we will describe the mechanical, the electronic and the software design. We will present first tests with the prototype of the robot and will show the potential functionality of the platform in simulation.