Moving Matter: Using a Single, Simple Robot to Reconfigure a Connected Set of Building Blocks
We implement and evaluate different methods for the reconfiguration of a connected arrangement of tiles into a desired target shape, using a single active robot that can move along the tile structure. This robot can pick up, carry, or drop off one tile at a time, but it must maintain a single connected configuration at all times.Becker et al. [5] recently proposed an algorithm that uses histograms as canonical intermediate configurations, guaranteeing performance within a constant factor of the optimal solution if the start and target configuration are well-separated. We implement and evaluate this algorithm, both in a simulated and practical setting, using an inchworm type robot to compare it with two existing heuristic algorithms.
Authors
- Sándor P. Fekete (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9062-4241)
- Dan Biediger
- Javier G. García (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8017-4884)
- Michael Yannuzzi
- Aaron T. Becker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7614-6282)
- Christian Rieck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0846-5163)
- Christian Scheffer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3471-2706)
- Ramin Kosfeld
- Peter Krämer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9635-5890)
- Arne Schmidt
- Jonas Friemel
- Harm Kube
Institutions
- University of Kassel (DE)
- Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (US)
- Bochum University of Applied Sciences (DE)
- University of Houston (US)
- Technische Universität Berlin (DE)
- Technische Universität Braunschweig (DE)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2025-08-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1109/case58245.2025.11163739
- Primary Topic
- Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00