A system includes an inspection robot having an input sensor comprising a laser profiler and a plurality of wheels structured to engage a curved portion of an inspection surface, wherein the laser profiler is configured to provide laser profiler data of the inspection surface; a controller, comprising: a profiler data circuit structured to interpret the laser profiler data; determine a feature of interest is present at a location of the inspection surface in response to the laser profiler data; and wherein the feature of interest comprises a shape description of the inspection surface at the location of the feature of interest.

A method for registering one of a plurality of assembly modules operatively coupled to one another in a modular assembly system is provided. A first message including a first identifier of the assembly module is received from one of the plurality of assembly modules. A second message including a second identifier for the assembly module is transmitted to the assembly module. The second identifier is generated based on at least the first identifier. A third message including the second identifier is received from the assembly module. In response to determining that the third message is received, the assembly module is registered as a new assembly module of the modular assembly system. At least one of the receiving, transmitting, determining, and registering is performed by a control module of the plurality of assembly modules.

A method for forming a group from a plurality of Bluetooth devices includes forming one subgroup with some of the plurality of Bluetooth devices; and, with respect to Bluetooth mediating devices that are at least some of the plurality of Bluetooth devices belonging to the subgroup, forming, by the Bluetooth mediating device, one lower subgroup having the subgroup as an upper subgroup thereof, together with the plurality of Bluetooth devices which do not yet belong to any subgroup.

A modular robot system includes N (N is an integer that is 2 or greater) cube-type unit robots, each of the N cube-type unit robots comprising: a housing in the shape of a regular hexahedron; a step motor installed in the housing; and a controller installed in the housing and for controlling the step motor. The housing has, on one surface thereof, a mounting groove in which a rotary body rotating by means of a rotating shaft of the step motor can be mounted, and, on the other surface of the housing, a connection groove in the same shape, so that by means of a connector to be mounted in the connection groove, connection to another cube-type unit robot is possible, and the housing has identification marks with different shapes from one another on the respective surfaces thereof.

A robotic post system includes one or more robotic posts having a processor and a memory. The robotic posts may include a manipulation arm and/or a swiveling and/or otherwise moveable trunk and/or base. Sensors provided on the robotic post enable the robotic post to rotate, tilt or move toward another robotic post to orient and secure a lockable band on one post with a lock on another post. A manipulation arm may grasp a lockable band and attach it to a lock, and either post may move away from the other to extend the length of a guide path.

A system includes an inspection robot for performing an inspection on an inspection surface with an inspection robot, the apparatus comprising a position definition circuit structured to determine an inspection robot position on the inspection surface; a data positioning circuit structured to interpret inspection data, and to correlate the inspection data to the inspection robot position on the inspection surface; and wherein the data positioning circuit is further structured to determine position informed inspection data in response to the correlating of the inspection data with the inspection robot position, wherein the position informed inspection data comprises absolute position data.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed Systems, apparatus, and methods to propagate a robot swarm using virtual partitions are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a transceiver to broadcast the availability of the apparatus to host one or more bots from a swarm of bots and to receive a copy request from a bot in the swarm of bots. The example apparatus also includes an evaluator to evaluate instructions from the bot and determine if the apparatus is equipped to propagate the bot. In addition, the example apparatus includes a virtual partition to provide an interface for executing a copy of the bot.

The invention concerns a robotic arm (1) with at least two arm modules (41, 42) which are moveable relative to one another and at least one manually operable input module (11) for generating control signals for the control of the robotic arm (1) on the basis of a user input. Both arm modules (41, 42) have a first interface (38, 40) onto which the input module (11) can be selectively mounted.

An anti-collision safety device/method for a modular robot is provided which automatically derives a new/updated geometric model for the kinematic chain when the robot has been reconfigured.

A system for localizing a swarm of robotic platforms utilizing ranging sensors. The swarm is localized by purposely leaving some of the platforms of the swarm stationary, providing localization to the moving ones. The platforms in the swarm can alternate between a stationary and moving state.