This paper introduces a cube-based reconfigurable robot that utilizes an electromagnet-based actuation framework to reconfigure in three dimensions via pivoting. While a variety of actuation mechanisms for self-reconfigurable robots have been explored, they often suffer from cost, complexity, assembly and sizing requirements that prevent scaled production of such robots. To address this challenge, we use an actuation mechanism based on electromagnets embedded into the edges of each cube to interchangeably create identically or oppositely polarized electromagnet pairs, resulting in repulsive or attractive forces, respectively. By leveraging attraction for hinge formation, and repulsion to drive pivoting maneuvers, we can reconfigure the robot by voxelizing it and actuating its constituent modules-termed Electrovoxels-via electromagnetically actuated pivoting. To demonstrate this, we develop fully untethered, three-dimensional self-reconfigurable robots and demonstrate 2D and 3D self-reconfiguration using pivot and traversal maneuvers on an air-table and in microgravity on a parabolic flight. This paper describes the hardware design of our robots, its pivoting framework, our reconfiguration planning software, and an evaluation of the dynamical and electrical characteristics of our system to inform the design of scalable self-reconfigurable robots.

We present G-ID, a method that utilizes the subtle patterns left by the 3D printing process to distinguish and identify objects that otherwise look similar to the human eye. The key idea is to mark different instances of a 3D model by varying slicing parameters that do not change the model geometry but can be detected as machine-readable differences in the print. As a result, G-ID does not add anything to the object but exploits the patterns appearing as a by-product of slicing, an essential step of the 3D printing pipeline.

MorphSensor is a 3D electronic design tool that enables designers to morph existing sensor modules of pre-defined two-dimensional shape into free-form electronic component arrangements that better integrate with the three-dimensional shape of a physical prototype. MorphSensor builds onto existing sensor module schematics that already define the electronic components and the wiring required to build the sensor. Since MorphSensor maintains the wire connections throughout the editing process, the sensor remains fully functional even when designers change the electronic component layout on the prototype geometry. We detail the MorphSensor editor that supports designers in re-arranging the electronic components, and discuss a fabrication pipeline based on customized PCB footprints for making the resulting freeform sensor. We then demonstrate the capabilities of our system by morphing a range of sensor modules of different complexity and provide a technical evaluation of the quality of the resulting free-form sensors.