Deep Learning for the selection of the best modular robots self-reconfiguration algorithm
Résumé
Modular Robots Self Reconfiguration (MRSR) is one of the most
challenging problems in nowadays robotics field. This problem consists
in the determination of how a set of identical modular robots, with
local knowledge of the system and limited energy and computational
capacities, can reorganize themselves into a target topology or shape.
MRSR has received great attention from the research community.
Therefore, a lot of centralized and decentralized algorithms were
designed to answer this problem. Unfortunately, the analysis of why and
when an algorithm is better than another is less studied. In this paper,
we proposed a hybrid centralized/distributed modular robots
reconfiguration approach. In this approach, a convolution neural network
system is used to estimate the most adapted distributed reconfiguration
algorithm according to the initial shape formed by the modular robots
and the target shape. Two distributed algorithms are studied: C2SR and
TBSR. The designed CNN model allows determining which option is the best
for a given reconfiguration problem: use of the C2SR algorithm, use of
the TBSR algorithm, or both algorithms are equivalent. The obtained
results show that the ML tool succeeds 97.25% of the time to determine
the suitable algorithm based on the initial and the final shapes. In
addition, the system can be extended to any number of algorithms. Our
contribution is the production of a neural network built for the
selection of the best modular robots self-reconfiguration algorithm.