Computational Issues in the Planning and Kinematics of Binary Robots

To meet the objectives of many future missions, robots will need to be adaptable and reconfigurable. A concept for such a robotic system has been proposed previously based on using a large number of simple binary actuators. Previous researchers have addressed some of the issues brought up by robots with a few binary actuators. This paper examines the computational feasibility of controlling and planning such binary robotic systems with a large number of actuators, including computation of their workspace, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics and trajectory following. Methods are proposed and evaluated by simulation. Detailed error analysis and computational requirements are presented. An example of the planning for a binary walking robot is presented.