This award funds an NSF Research Planning Workshop on Self-reconfiguring Robots, to be held in the Fall of 1998 at the Minary Center, New Hampshire. The workshop will investigate the scientific and engineering challenges in building and using self-reconfiguring robots to increase the flexibility of robot systems. Self-reconfiguring robots consist of a set of identical modules that can dynamically and autonomously reconfigure in a variety of shapes, to best fit the terrain the robot has to navigate, the shape of the object the robt has to manipulate, or the sensing needs of the task. A modular robotic structure that can metamorphose into a different geometric structure by reorganizing internally its modules supports multiple modalities of navigation, manipulation, and sensing. Self-reconfiguration provides a paradigm shift for studying the fundamental principles of organization and reorganization in physical systems. In robotics, self-reconfiguration defines a rich class of questions about designing, controlling, and using massively distributed systems of robots. The scientific foundations of self-reconfiguring robotics are only beginning to emerge. Progress in this field will be enabled by advances in mechanical design, distributed systems, and planning. The workshop on self-reconfiguring robotics will bring together leading experts in this field to discuss the current state of the field and to set short term and long term research goals. A summary of the discussion will be provided as a Web site and as a Dartmouth computer science technical report.
