Search

International audience; In the literature we can find many kinds of modular robot that can build a wide variety of structures. In general, finding an assembly order to reach the final configuration, while respecting the insertion constraints of each kind of modular robot is a difficult process that requires system-specific tuning. In this article, we introduce a generic assembly planner by constrained disassembly (GAPCoD) which works with all kinds of modular robots. It outputs a directed acyclic graph where vertices are modules needing to be placed before his child nodes. This graph is obtained through the disassembly of the desired structure submitted to user chosen constraints. We detail the compiler as well as the way to choose constraints and their influence on performance. The robots embed simple path planning algorithm to reach the destination and act asdecentralized agents. Examples are provided to show the possibilities that the compiler offers with two very different robot systems and constraints.

International audience; The design phase of a car development is a long and tedious process that requires a lot of trial and error. In this article we introduce a new concept aiming to make this process easier and more interactive. Our solution consist in using a modular robot together with a shape memory polymer in order to create an interactive model of a car piece. We came up with an algorithm to approximate the surface of a piece using NURBS to describe the shape and the resulting molded polymer is simulated on our simulator VisibleSim, proving the accuracy of our system.