3.4.MECHATRONICS
Mechatronics is the discipline of building reconfigurable robots. An excellent resource on the subject can be found at Colorado State. Robots are made out of modules, which could crudely be described as intelligent Lego bricks. Plugging
the bricks (or modules) together in particular ways allows a mechatronic robot to more or less effectively solve a problem such as moving over terrain of a given class; e.g. swamp or very rocky. In the mechatronic domain stigmergy is represented as perception of self. While the Swarm-bot project can be thought of as fitting into this category, mechatronic research focuses on the assembly, re-assembly and reconfiguration of simpler units. Continuing with the comparison with the Swarm Bot project, mechatronic research is concerned with the construction of an s-bot rather than the swarm-bot. Stigmergy in this area is typically sematectonic – the robot/module configurations being used to drive the configuration process.