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The s-bot is a small (15 cm) mobile robot developed at the ASL at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland between 2001 and 2004. Targeted to swarm robotics, a field of artificial intelligence, it was developed within the Swarm-bots project, a Future and Emerging Technologies project coordinated by Prof. Marco Dorigo. Built by a small team of engineers ( Francesco Mondada, André Guignard, Michael Bonani and Stéphane Magnenat ) of the group of Prof. Dario Floreano and with the help of student projects, it is considered at the time of completion as one of the most complex and featured robots ever for its size.1 Purpose and use of the s-bot
This is a research robot, aimed at studying team work and inter-robot communication. To do this, the s-bots have several special abilities:
- Using their gripper (red in the photos), they can connect together. Then they can, for instance, pass over gap and steps where a single robot would have failed.
- Using their integrated force sensor, they can coordinate to retrieve an object to a certain location without the use of explicit communication. This is the way ants do to bring preys to nest.
Of course, all other sensors and actuators, also found on other robots, can be used to do team work such as food foraging.
2 Technical details
2.1 General
- 12 cm diameter
- 15 cm height
- 660 g
- 2 LiIon batteries
- 1 hour autonomy moving
2.2 Control
- 400 MHz custom XScale CPU board, 64 MB of RAM, 32 MB of flash
- 12 distributed PIC CPU for low-level handling
- Custom Linux port running Familiar
- Wifi
2.3 Actuators
- 2 treels
- turret rotation
- rigid gripper elevation
- rigid gripper
- 3 axis side arm
- side arm gripper
2.4 Sensors
- 15 infraredInfrared IR radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than visible light, but shorter than microwave radiation. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra "below"), red being the color of visible light of longest wavelength. sensors around the turret
- 4 infraredInfrared IR radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than visible light, but shorter than microwave radiation. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra "below"), red being the color of visible light of longest wavelength. sensors below the robot
- position sensors on all degrees of freedom except gripper
- force and speed sensors on all major degrees of freedom
- 2 humiditiy sensors
- 2 temperature sensors
- 8 ambiant light sensors around the turret
- 4 accelerometersAn accelerometer or gravimeter is a device for measuring acceleration and the effects of gravity. According to the principles of general relativity, the effects of gravity are equivalent to those of acceleration, so an accelerometer can make no distinctio, which allow 3D orientation
- 1 640x480 cameraDigital cameras, as opposed to film or videotape ones, use an electronic sensor to record the (still or moving) image and sound, as a piece of electronic data. Nowadays, cameras are multifunctional and the same machine can take photos, video or sound. sensor. Custom optic based on spherical mirror provides omnidirectional vision
- 4 microphones
- 2 axis structure deformation sensors
- optical barrier in grippers
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