A UNIQUE IDENTIFIER ASSIGNMENT METHOD FOR DISTRIBUTED MODULAR ROBOTS

Modular robots are autonomous systems with variable morphology, composed of independent connected computational elements, called particles or modules. Due to critical resource constraints and limited capabilities, globally unique identifier (ID) assignment to each particle is a very challenging task in modular robots. However, having a unique ID in each one remains essential for various operations and applications in this domain. For instance, it is required to establish communications between nodes and implement routing protocols. It helps in saving energy consumption and enhancing the security mechanisms. In this paper, we propose a distributed unique ID assignment method for modular robots. It is a three phases based algorithm. The first phase consists in discovering the system while building a logical tree. The second phase finds the total size of particles in the system needed for several operations in modular robots, and the third one is dedicated to the unique ID assignment. After fully optimizing the distributed algorithm, the effects of various system shapes and leader positions on the energy and time complexity are studied, while proposing fitting solutions for different requirements.