Advances in autonomous mobile robots enabled researchers to extend previous work on locomotion in non-ideal environments, mainly on unstructured terrain. Currently available gaits for mobile robots include wheels, treads and similar methods, which limit the locomotion capabilities of a particular robot. For example, a robot using currently available locomotion methods is incapable of climbing a set of stairs, or move over a relatively large obstacle. Although there are many examples of robots with climbing capabilities, a robot that can move with relative ease on flat terrain with an ability to climb over an obstacle is yet to be designed.

On the other hand, new technologies such as MEMS opened the pathway to small-scale mobile robots. Applications envisioning small inexpensive robots that can accomplish tasks in unstructured environments and narrow spaces are slowly emerging.

Drawing from the recent research on modular robots and self-reconfigurable structures as well as possible application of small mobile robots with limited capabilities, we envision a modular self-reconfigurable group of robots that consists of two modules with different characteristics. A sufficient number of modules combined as a single entity will be capable of self-reconfiguring themselves into defined shapes, which in turn will provide a new form of locomotion gait.

"I-Cubes" are a class of modular self-reconfigurable bipartite robotic system. This system is a collection of independently controlled mechatronic modules (links) and passive connection elements (cubes). A link has the ability to connect to and disconnect from the face of a cube. While attached to a cube on one end, links are also capable of moving themselves and another cube attached to the other end (See animations). We assume that all active (link) and passive (cube) modules as capable of permitting power and information flow to their neighboring modules.

As the links (and attached cubes) move, attach, and detach themselves to the cubes, the morphology of the system changes. The three-dimensional oriented network formed by the modules (where the links can be visualized as lines connecting the nodes formed by cubes) break at a point when a link detaches itself from a cube, and a new connection is formed when a link re-attaches to a cube. If a link moves a cube attached to it, the location of the nodes on the network changes. The system described here can therefore dynamically reconfigure itself.

These pages include pictures of initial prototypes, example animations of link and cube motions, and other related information on I-Cubes project conducted at the Advanced Mechatronics Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University.

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