4. Implementation

This chapter presents the implementation of the concept, both at the hardware and application software layer in a simulation framework. It begins with the hardware design considerations from the perspective of a robotic module’s platform design. In this regard, the factors that influence the design of a dynamic power management system are explored in detail, that include it’s electronic architecture, system power budget calculation, choice of system source voltage, and platform specific constraints. The chapter then presents the detail description of the proposed power management system with fault tolerant energy sharing and its design considerations. The proposed power management system has been developed and realized as a real microprocessor based hardware together with a dedicated firmware. From the perspective of application software layer implementation, firstly, it presents the devised simulation framework and its implementation details. It then presents the details of the proposed application software layer power management components of a robotic module required for dynamic power sharing in a modular robotic organism, and the application software layer fault tolerance at an organism level. At the end, a short summary concludes the presented work.