> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://swissler-innovative-robotics-lab.gitbook.io/lab-onboarding/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://swissler-innovative-robotics-lab.gitbook.io/lab-onboarding/theory/recommended-reading.md).

# Recommended reading

Getting started as a researcher

Research is fundamentally about exploring ideas and concepts that haven't been considered before. To do this, it is best to have a firm footing in what has been done before so you can build off of existing work. The papers below are by no means an exhaustive list of important papers, nor should they be considered a list of the only papers you need to read. The best way to find papers regarding a given subject is to search <https://scholar.google.com/> and one of the best ways to keep up with the robotic literature is to follow the work of authors you come accross who work on your areas of interest. As you use google scholar more and more, I find that the recommended articles are generally pretty useful.

The collected papers from the lab are available at this google drive folder: <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1edzrbt2tmTvVm7x5-o25M7dxReWiD7N2?usp=sharing>

## Highlighted papers from lab members

#### Dr. Petras Swissler

* [Reactivebuild: Environment-adaptive self-assembly of amorphous structures](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation\&hl=en\&user=-0QxNlEAAAAJ\&citation_for_view=-0QxNlEAAAAJ:9yKSN-GCB0IC) P Swissler, M Rubenstein, Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems: 15th International Symposium, 363-375
* [FireAnt3D: a 3D self-climbing robot towards non-latticed robotic self-assembly](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation\&hl=en\&user=-0QxNlEAAAAJ\&citation_for_view=-0QxNlEAAAAJ:d1gkVwhDpl0C) P Swissler, M Rubenstein, 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

## General swarm robot papers

* Yim, Mark, Wei-Min Shen, Behnam Salemi, Daniela Rus, Mark Moll, Hod Lipson, Eric Klavins, and Gregory S. Chirikjian. "Modular self-reconfigurable robot systems \[grand challenges of robotics]." *IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine* 14, no. 1 (2007): 43-52.
* Rubenstein, Michael, Alejandro Cornejo, and Radhika Nagpal. "Programmable self-assembly in a thousand-robot swarm." *Science* 345, no. 6198 (2014): 795-799.
* Nagpal, Radhika, Howard Shrobe, and Jonathan Bachrach. "Organizing a global coordinate system from local information on an ad hoc sensor network." In *Information Processing in Sensor Networks: Second International Workshop, IPSN 2003, Palo Alto, CA, USA, April 22–23, 2003 Proceedings*, pp. 333-348. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2003.

## Self-assembling robotic systems

* Romanishin, John W., Kyle Gilpin, Sebastian Claici, and Daniela Rus. "3D M-Blocks: Self-reconfiguring robots capable of locomotion via pivoting in three dimensions." In *2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)*, pp. 1925-1932. IEEE, 2015.
* Liang, Guanqi, Haobo Luo, Ming Li, Huihuan Qian, and Tin Lun Lam. "Freebot: A freeform modular self-reconfigurable robot with arbitrary connection point-design and implementation." In *2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)*, pp. 6506-6513. IEEE, 2020.
* Melenbrink, Nathan, Panagiotis Michalatos, Paul Kassabian, and Justin Werfel. "Using local force measurements to guide construction by distributed climbing robots." In *2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)*, pp. 4333-4340. IEEE, 2017.

## Biological self-assembling systems

* Reid, Chris R., Matthew J. Lutz, Scott Powell, Albert B. Kao, Iain D. Couzin, and Simon Garnier. "Army ants dynamically adjust living bridges in response to a cost–benefit trade-off." *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* 112, no. 49 (2015): 15113-15118.
* Peleg, Orit, Jacob M. Peters, Mary K. Salcedo, and Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan. "Collective mechanical adaptation of honeybee swarms." *Nature Physics* 14, no. 12 (2018): 1193-1198.

## Important robot algorithms (youtube is better for this)

* A\* Pathfinding: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-WgKMFuhE>
* Particle Filter: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrzmH_yerBU>