Communication assisted navigation in robotic swarms: self-organization and cooperation

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  • Presented at: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, San Francisco, CA, Sep 25-30, 2011
  • Published in: 2011 Ieee/Rsj International Conference On Intelligent Robots And Systems, p. 4981-4988
  • Series: IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
  • Ieee Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Po Box 1331, Piscataway, Nj 08855-1331 Usa, 2011

We present a communication based navigation algorithm for robotic swarms. It lets robots guide each other’s navigation by exchanging messages containing navigation information through the wireless network formed among the swarm. We study the use of this algorithm in two different scenarios. In the first scenario, the swarm guides a single robot to a target, while in the second, all robots of the swarm navigate back and forth between two targets. In both cases, the algorithm provides efficient navigation, while being robust to failures of robots in the swarm. Moreover, we show that in the latter case, the system lets the swarm self-organize into a robust dynamic structure. This self-organization further improves navigation efficiency, and is able to find shortest paths in cluttered environments. We test our system both in simulation and on real robots.

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