Structure design and dynamic modelling of a novel modular self-reconfigurable robot

Reconfigurability of the modular robot is becoming curial to be a high flexibility for the wide varieties of tasks and environments. In this paper, a novel self-reconfigurable modular robot called M
²
sbot is designed, which has the approximate cuboid shaping structure. The unit model is with one active and five passive connection surfaces, compact structure and flexible motion. It is characterized by using the unique hook-claw docking mechanism as the docking part of the neighbor modular. And the responding control system based on STM32F103VET6 is also implemented. The forward kinematic equations of the chain robot are established, and then the dynamic equation is generated by the recursive Newton-Euler method based on the global matrix description. Finally, the calculation and simulation analysis of the six-module configuration with two branches demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed method in the generation of motion equation.