Cooperative Turning for a Reconfigurable Mobile Robot

A reconfigurable mobile robot called AMOEBA-I has various turning modes and diverse configurations.A cooperative turning method is proposed to optimize the turning performance of AMOEBA-I.A mathematical model is established correspondingly.Cooperative turning methods under different configurations are analyzed theoretically.The kinematical relations of three modules during cooperative turning are determined.Then,an index is proposed for evaluating AMOEBA-I cooperative turning performance.Cooperative turning methods under various configurations are compared by theoretical analysis and experiments.Experimental results prove the validity of the cooperative turning method.