Michael Bonani

Michael Bonani
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne | EPFL · Robotic Systems Laboratory

About

41
Publications
23,254
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
2,752
Citations

Publications

Publications (41)
Article
Full-text available
Mobile robots are valuable tools for education because of both the enthusiasm they raise and the multidisciplinary nature of robotics technology. Mobile robots give access to a wide range of fields, such as complex mechanics, sensors, wireless transmission, mathematics, and computer science. However, despite their potential as educational tools, ro...
Article
In this paper, we develop an autonomous construction system in which a self-contained ground robot builds a protective barrier by means of compliant pockets (i.e., filled bags). We present a stochastic control algorithm based on two biological mechanisms (stigmergy and templates) that takes advantage of compliant pockets for autonomous construction...
Article
In this paper, we develop an autonomous construction system in which self-contained ground robots build a protective barrier by means of compliant pockets. We present a stochastic control algorithm based on two biological mechanisms–stigmergy and templates–that takes advantage of compliant pockets for autonomous construction with single and multipl...
Chapter
This chapter presents a disaster recovery scenario that has been used throughout the ASCENS project as a reference to coordinate the study of distributed algorithms for robot ensembles. We first introduce the main traits and open problems in the design of behaviors for robot ensembles. We then present the scenario, highlighting its generality as a...
Conference Paper
Robots are an ideal tool for introducing programming to young generations. To be accessible to a large public, educational robots must be affordable and easy to use. In a previous work, the authors have developed Thymio II, an educational robot costing about 100 $. Thymio II is programmable using the ASEBA framework, which provides an interactive d...
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents a case-study on the performance achieved by the me-chanical interactions of self-assembling mobile robots. This study is based on the hand-bot robot, designed to operate within heterogeneous swarms of robots. The hand-bot is specialized in object manipulation and can improve its performance by exploiting physical collaborations...
Article
Full-text available
It is often challenging to manage the battery supply when dealing with a fleet of mobile robots during long experiments. If one uses classical recharge sta-tions, then agents are immobilized during the whole recharge process. In this study, we present a novel approach that employs a battery pack swapping station. Batteries are charged in a rotating...
Article
We demonstrate a scenario in which a mobile robot, according to a plan, builds a structure that it can then enter. The robot interacts with the construction using local sensing. This synthesis of planning and stigmergy opens the way to new construction techniques using mobile robots.
Article
Full-text available
Robots are both fascinating objects for the general public and devices whose conception, understanding and programming involve many fields. This unique combination makes them an ideal tool for introducing science and technology to children. This paper presents the outcome of a programming workshop held on the occasion of the 2011 EPFL Robotics Fest...
Article
Full-text available
The introduction of technology in the public school teaching process could help increasing the weak motivation we can observe toward engineering studies. To achieve this goal, one main obstacle is motivating public school teachers to use technological tools in their teaching activity. In this paper we present how to use a large public robotic festi...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We introduce enhanced directional self-assembly (EDSA) - a novel mechanism for morphology growth through the creation of directed connections in a self-assembling multirobot system. In our approach, a robot inviting a physical connection actively recruits the best located neighboring robot and guides the recruit to the location on its chassis where...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this article, the RObject concept is first introduced. This is followed by a survey of applicable energy scavenging technologies. Energy is a key issue for the large scale deployment of robotics in daily life, as recharging the batteries places a considerable burden on the end-user and is a waste of energy which has an overall negative impact on...
Article
Full-text available
We propose ASEA, a modular architecture for event-based control of complex robots. ASEBA runs scripts inside virtual machines on self-contained sensor and actuator nodes. This distributes processing with no loss of versatility and provides several benefits. The closeness to the hardware allows fast reactivity to environmental stimuli. The exploitat...
Article
Full-text available
We propose an experimental study where simplistic organ- isms rise from inanimate matter and evolve solely through physical interactions. These organisms are composed of three types of macroscopic building blocks floating in an agitated medium. The dynamism of the medium allows the blocks to physically bind with and disband from each other. This re...
Article
In this article, the RObject concept is first introduced. This is followed by a survey of applicable energy scavenging technologies. Energy is a key issue for the large scale deployment of robotics in daily life, as recharging the batteries places a considerable burden on the end-user and is a waste of energy which has an overall negative impact on...
Article
Full-text available
SLAM is a prominent feature for autonomous robots operating in undefined environments. Applications areas such as consumer robotics appliances would clearly benefit from low-cost and compact SLAM implementations. The SLAM research community has developed several robust algorithms in the course of the last two decades. However, until now most SLAM d...
Article
Autonomous construction by mobile robots would be useful in various situations, such as in outer space, in hazardous environments, but also for the building industry. Current works tackle simplified scenarios where environment is flat and resources readily available; moreover robots build simple structures. However, target applications would featur...
Article
Full-text available
Collective and swarm robotics explores scenarios involving many robots running at the same time. A good platform for collective-robotic experiments should provide certain features among others: it should have a large battery life, it should be able to perceive its peers, and it should be capable of interacting with them. This paper presents the mar...
Article
Full-text available
A Magnetic Switchable Device (MSD) is a ferromagnetic circuit using permanent magnets where the flux can circulate between different paths when its configuration is changed. This routes or cancels the flux through specific surfaces, and thus turns on or off adhesion forces.We present classic and innovative magnetic configuration to realize powerful...
Article
We present a study of collective robotics by including a mechatronics point of view. In the field it is usually claimed that collective robots are simple and relatively cheap because they are produced in large quantities. Instead in our study we show that collective robots are not simple because they need sensors and actuators for additional work....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We present a novel approach to mobile object manipulation for service in indoor environments. Current research in service robotics focus on single robots able to move, manipulate objects, and transport them to various locations. Our approach differs by taking a collective robotics perspective: different types of small robots perform different tasks...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We explore the problem of resource allocation in a system made up of autonomous agents that can either carry out tasks individually or, when necessary, cooperate by forming physical connections with each other. We consider a group transport scenario that involves transporting broken robots to a repair zone. Some broken robots can be transported by...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We propose an experimental study where simplistic organ- isms rise from inanimate matter and evolve solely through physical interactions. These organisms are composed of three types of macroscopic building blocks floating in an agitated medium. The dynamism of the medium allows the blocks to physically bind with and disband from each other. This re...
Article
Full-text available
Swarm robotics draws inspiration from decentralized self-organizing biological systems in general and from the collective behavior of social insects in particular. In social insect colonies, many tasks are performed by higher order group or team entities, whose task-solving capacities transcend those of the individual participants. In this paper, w...
Article
Full-text available
We explore the problem of resource allocation in a system made up of autonomous agents that can either carry out tasks individually or, when necessary, cooperate by forming physical connections with each other. We consider a group transport scenario that involves transporting broken robots to a repair zone. Some broken robots can be transported by...
Article
Full-text available
Mobile robots have the potential to become the ideal tool to teach a broad range of engineering disciplines. Indeed, mobile robots are getting increasingly complex and accessible. They embed elements from diverse fields such as mechanics, digital electronics, automatic control, signal processing, embedded programming, and energy management. Moreover...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In social insect colonies, many tasks are performed by higher- order entities, such as groups and teams whose task solving capacities transcend those of the individual participants. In this paper, we investi- gate the emergence of such higher-order entities using a colony of up to 12 physical robots. We report on an experimental study in which the...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Mobile robots are said to be capable of self- assembly when they can autonomously form physical connections with each other. Despite the recent proliferation of self- assembling systems, little work has been done on using self- assembly to add functional value to a robotic system, and even less on quantifying the contribution of self-assembly to sy...
Article
Full-text available
An important goal of collective robotics is the design of control systems that allow groups of robots to accomplish common tasks by coordinating without a centralized control. In this paper, we study how a group of physically assembled robots can display coherent behavior on the basis of a simple neural controller that has access only to local sens...
Article
Full-text available
Mobile robots are said to be capable of self-assembly when they can autonomously form physical connections with each other. Despite the recent proliferation of self-assembling systems, little work has been done on using self-assembly to add functional value to a robotic system, and even less on quantifying the contribution of self-assembly to syste...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper, we discuss the self-assembling capabilities of the swarm-bot, a distributed robotics concept that lies at the intersection between collective and self-reconfigurable robotics. A swarm-bot is comprised of autonomous mobile robots called s-bots. S-bots can either act independently or self-assemble into a swarm-bot by using their grippe...
Article
Full-text available
This paper illustrates the methods and results of two sets of experiments in which a group of mobile robots, called s-bots, are required to physically connect to each other—i.e., to self- assemble—to cope with environmental conditions that prevent them to carry out their task in- dividually. The first set of experiments is a pioneering study on the...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We study groups of autonomous robots engaged in a foraging task as typically found in some ant colonies. The task is to find a prey object and a nest object, es- tablish a path between the two, and transport the prey to the nest. Once a path is es- tablished, robots are recruited to the prey, self-assemble into a pulling structure and collectively...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We present a first attempt to accomplish a simple object manipulation task using the self-reconfigurable robotic system swarm-bot. The number of modular entities involved, their global shape or size and their internal structure are not pre-determined, but result from a self-organized process in which the modules autonomously grasp each other and/or...
Article
Full-text available
Multi-robot systems have been studied in tasks that require the robots to be physically linked. In such a configuration, a group of robots may navigate a terrain that proves too difficult for a single robot. On the contrary, many collective tasks can be accomplished more efficiently by a group of independent robots. This paper is about swarm-bot, a...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Consider a group of autonomous, mobile robots with the ability to physically connect to one another (self-assemble). The group is said to exhibit functional self-assembly if the robots can choose to self-assemble in response to the demands of their task and environment [15]. We present the first robotic controller capable of functional self-assembl...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A swarm-bot is a robotic entity built of several autonomous mobile robots (called s-bots) physically connected together. This form of collective robotics exploits robot interactions both at the behavioral and physical levels. The goal of this paper is to analyze the physical performance of a swarm-bot as function of its size (number n of s-bots com...
Conference Paper
Multi-robot systems have been studied in tasks that require the robots to be physically linked. In such a configuration, a group of robots may navigate a terrain that proves too difficult for a single robot. On the contrary, many collective tasks can be accomplished more efficiently by a group of independent robots. This paper is about swarm-bot, a...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract— In this paper, we present a comprehensive study on autonomous self-assembly. In particular, we discuss the selfassembling capabilities of the swarm-bot, a distributed robotics concept that lies at the intersection between collective an d selfreconfigurable robotics. A swarm-bot comprises autonomous

Network

Cited By