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The decay in structure size of manufacturing products has yielded new demands on spontaneous composition methods. The key for the realization of small-sized robots lies in how to achieve the efficient assembly sequence in a bottom-up manner, where most of the parts have only limited (or no) computational (i.e. deliberative) abilities. In this paper, based on a novel self-assembly platform consisting of self-propulsive centimetre-sized modules capable of aggregation on the surface of water, we study the effect of stochasticity and morphology (shape) on the yield of targeted formations in self-assembly processes. Specifically, we focus on a unique phenomenon: that a number of modules instantly compose a target product without forming intermediate subassemblies, some of which constitute undesired geometrical formations (termed one-shot aggregation). Together with a focus on the role that the morphology of the modules plays, we validate the effect of one-shot aggregation with a kinetic rate mathematical model. Moreover, we examined the degree of parallelism of the assembly process, which is an essential factor in self-assembly, but is not systematically taken into account by existing frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robotics researchers increasingly agree that ideas from biology and self-organization can strongly benefit the design of autonomous robots. Biological organisms have evolved to perform and survive in a world characterized by rapid changes, high uncertainty, indefinite richness, and limited availability of information. Industrial robots, in contrast, operate in highly controlled environments with no or very little uncertainty. Although many challenges remain, concepts from biologically inspired (bio-inspired) robotics will eventually enable researchers to engineer machines for the real world that possess at least some of the desirable properties of biological organisms, such as adaptivity, robustness, versatility, and agility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]