Area coverage is a crucial factor for a robot intended for applications such as floor cleaning, disinfection, and inspection. Robots with fixed shapes could not realize an adequate level of area coverage performance. Reconfigurable robots have been introduced to overcome the limitations of fixed-shape robots, such as accessing narrow spaces and cover obstacles. Although state-of-the-art reconfigurable robots used for coverage applications are capable of shape-changing for improving the area coverage, the reconfiguration is limited to a few predefined shapes. It has been proven that the ability of reconfiguration beyond a few shapes can significantly improve the area coverage performance of a reconfigurable robot. In this regard, this paper proposes a novel robot model and a low-level controller that can facilitate the reconfiguration beyond a small set of predefined shapes and locomotion per instructions while firmly maintaining the shape. A prototype of a robot that facilitates the aim mentioned above has been designed and developed. The proposed robot model and controller have been integrated into the prototype, and experiments have been conducted considering various reconfiguration and locomotion scenarios. Experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed model and controller during reconfiguration and locomotion of the robot. Moreover, the applicability of the proposed model and controller for achieving high-level autonomous capabilities has been proven.
Keywords: area coverage; kinematics; reconfigurable robotics; robot controlling.