Module design with wireless communication for modular reconfigurable systems

In this paper, the concept of modular robots is introduced to a type of multi-link snake robotic systems. The links of the traditional snake robots are evolved to intelligent modules, and this decentralized architecture can benefit for the removal of broken parts and the adding of new modules for reconfiguration. The module with automatic connector and wireless communication is implemented first, and a reconfiguration algorithm is proposed for determining the physical position and acting role of the sequential connected modules in a snake-like robot. Finally, one experiment is conducted for testing the feasibility and reconfigurability of the proposed wireless modular snake robots.