SEMINAR

FRACTAL ROBOTS

ASHARANI.R
1PE07EC011
8TH SEMESTER
DEPT OF ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION
PES SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
BANGALORE-560100

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WHY FRACTAL ROBOTS???

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 Lego bricks?????
The production of LEGO bricks is so accurate
that only 18 out of 1 million LEGO elements
produced is considered defective.

strong enough to hold onto another brick but

easy enough to pull apart. 
 PRINCIPLE :
•The principle behind Fractal Robots is very simple. we take some cubic
bricks made of metals and plastics, motorize them, put some
electronics inside them and control them with a computer.

•you get machines that can change shape

from one object to another

•No manual intervention is necessary.

 What exactly is it?
• What are fractals ?

• The Basic Fractal Unit [BFU].

• The functional modules.

• Overall functionality.

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 Fractal & BFU??
•In order to respond to rapidly changing environment and market, it is
imperative to have capabilities such as flexibility, adaptability,
reusability, etc. for the manufacturing system.

•The fractal manufacturing system is one of the new manufacturing

paradigms for this purpose.

•A basic component of fractal manufacturing

system, called a  basic fractal unit.
 Characteristics & features.
• Self repair mechanism.
• Specific characteristics:
• self similarity: A Fractal Robot resembles itself, i.e. wherever you
look at, any part of its body will be similar to the whole object.
• self organization: Self-organization is a basically a process
of evolution where the effect of the environment is minimal,
i.e. where the development of new, complex structures takes
place primarily in and through the system itself.
• goal orientation : works hard to achieve the assigned task.

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 Self Repair
• Purpose.
• Animation of repair of a defective part:

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 3 Self repair mechanisms
• First : Cube replacement.
– Parts not discarded…just reconfigured.
– No redundancy of fractals=>structural integrity retained
despite functional loss
• Second : Partial dismantling & reuse of cubes.
– Cubes partially dismantled & re-assembled.
– A way of storing away fractal robots.
• Third : Smaller robots servicing larger ones.
– Smaller cubes discarded if faulty.
• The ultimate 4th one ?
– Self manufacture.
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 Shape & size:
 
• Fractal Robots start at one size to which half size or double size cubes
can be attached and to each of these half size/double size cubes can be
attached respectively.

•So a fractal cube can be of any size.

•The smallest expected size is between 1000 and 10,000 atoms wide.

•These robots can assist in production and manufacture of goods thus

bringing down the manufacturing price down dramatically.
 Construction Details
• As simple and cheap as possible.

• A fractal cube.[BFU]

• Inside the box.

• The outside
Contact pads,
o
45 petals
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 Construction:
The robotic cubes are assembled from face plates which have been
manufactured and bolted to a cubic frame .

The cube therefore is hollow and the plates have all the
mechanisms.

The plates also have 45 degree ‘petals’ that push

out of the surface to engage
the neighboring face that
allows one robotic cube to
lock to its neighbor.
 Computer control:

•The largest component of the Fractal Robot system is the

software.

•The commands to control a Fractal Robot are all

commands for movement such as move left, right etc .

• computer program to control the robot is greatly

simplified in that whatever software that is developed for
a large scale robot, it also applies to the smaller scale with
no modifications to the command structure.
 Movement mechanism
• Cross section of plate:

• Petals movement.

• Co-ordination with
adjacent cubes.

• Computer Control
(fractal OS & bus)
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 Movement algorithms

• Movement of cubes.

• 3 Basic movement methods:

– Pick and place
– N-streamers
– L-streamers
(single and group movements)

• Digital Control Matter.

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 Pick & place:

•Commands are issued to a collection of cubes telling each cube

where to go.

•Entire collection of movements needed to perform particular operations]

are worked out and stored exactly like conventional robots store
movement paths. (Paint spraying robots use this technique.

•However there are better structured ways to storing movement patterns.

 N-streamers:
•A rod is pushed out from a surface, and then another cube is moved
into the vacant position.

•The new cube is joined to the tail of the growing rod and pushed out
again to grow the rod.
 L-Streamers:
•Basically, an L-shape of cubes numbered 4, 5, and 6 in figure 5.2.a
attached to a rod numbered 1, 2, 3, and then a new cube 7 is added
so that the rod grows by one cube until it looks like figure 5.2.f.

•When large numbers of cubes follow similar paths, common cubes

are grouped into a collection and this collection is controlled with
same single commands
 Applications of Fractal Robots:
1.Bridge Building

• Default constraints : Time & finance.

• Use of L-streamer.

• Repair damaged bridges, scale any rough

terrain.
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 2.Fire Fighting
• Enter through the rubble.

• Support building from collapse.

• On board fire hoses.
• Locate and rescue survivors.
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 3.Space exploration
• One of the best areas of application.
• Advantageous features : cheapness , self
repair, 100% automation possibilities.
• Build anything from space stations to
satellites.
• No human intervention.

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 4.Medical Applications
• Turn into variety of surgical tools.
• No need of cutting open the patient.
• Minimal blood loss during surgery.
• A complete ‘fractal surgeon’.

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 5.Earthquake applications
• Terrain undefined.
• Multi terrain-walking and crawling abilities.
• Support further collapse.
• Fire fighting robots , medical robots.

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 6.Military applications
• Turn into a multi terrain vehicle.
• Dodge incoming shells.
• Carry reconfigurable array of weapons.
• Self repair.

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 Limitations
• Still in infancy.

• Per unit cost.

• Software limitations.

• Energy efficiency.

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 Conclusion
• Versatility of applications.

• Save economy and time.

• May take 4-5 yrs.

• Once 1st step taken….there is no stopping.

• Revolutionize technology like never before.

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FRACTAL ROBOT….
THANK YOU

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