General modular robot architecture and configuration design

Adaptability is the measure of system ability to cope with change or uncertainty. A modular robot system (MRS) has high adaptability since it can produce a large number of configuration variations, and each of them can fulfil a specific task optimally. High adaptability makes a modular robot system very competitive in today's even-changing environment. One of design issues of an MRS is configuration design, which is to determine a configuration for a specified task from all possible configurations under given system architecture. Configuration design methodologies relate closely to system architecture since system architecture determines design variables. Nevertheless, a general architecture can possess all the features that can produce new types of design variables, and configuration design methodology based on this general architecture is applicable to configuration design of any specified architecture. In this paper, both general architecture and configuration design methodology are studied.