Recursive Robotic Assemblers
Name
smith-miana-sm-mas-2023-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
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13.85 MB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Smith, Miana M.
Advisor(s)
Gershenfeld, Neil
Date Issued
June 2023
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Biology efficiently builds across size scales: at the scale of tens of nanometers, ribosomes assemble more ribosomes, enabling the highly parallelized production of proteins that make up living systems ranging from prokaryotes at the scale of microns, to blue whales at the scale of tens of meters. At a level above ribosomes, we might consider cell division as another type of assembly process: as the size scale of the assembled parts grows, the assemblers also grow. This represents a recursive and hierarchical assembly process. In contrast, current robotic and CNC construction processes, though often parallelized, are constrained to pre-set, limited assembly rates and sizes. Inspired by biology, this thesis considers how we might develop recursive and hierarchical robotic assembly systems. That is, similar to a biological assembly system, can we develop a robotic assembly system that is able to build robots, structures, and robots integrated in structures?
To this end, we decompose both the robot and the structures into a set of compatible building blocks, or voxels, that can assemble and reassemble into more complex structures. The decomposition of the robot is based on a “functional voxel” that routes electrical signals and power, in addition to mechanical forces. Robotic modules are made by incorporating actuation, which then assemble into reconfigurable robots using a reversible solder joint. An additional set of construction voxels, which do not contain electrical features, enables the robot to assemble higher performance structures. This work exists at the intersection of modular robotics and collective robotic construction, prioritizing scalability— our ability to produce many robots that then build useful structures.
A set of functional voxels, robot modules, and construction voxels have been developed and characterized. The robotic system is characterized by its function: the robot is able to assemble another robot and the robot is able to assemble construction voxels into small structures. The construction voxel system is characterized using mechanical testing, which verifies that the material system is performant. Together, this demonstrates all the elements required for recursive robotic assembly, in which a robot is able to assemble both more robots and larger structures.
MIT Department
Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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