Marsupial Teams of Robots: Deployment of Miniature Robots for Swarm Exploration under Communication Constraints

M. S. Couceiro, D. Portugal, R. P. Rocha and N. M. F. Ferreira

Robotica, 32(7), pp. 1017-1038, Oct. 2014. DOI: 10.1017/S0263574713001185

Abstract

Mobile Ad hoc Networks have attracted much attention in the last years, since they allow the coordination and cooperation between agents belonging to a multi-robot system. However, initially deploying autonomously a wireless sensor robot network in a real environment has not taken the proper attention. Moreover, maintaining the connectivity between agents in real and complex environments is an arduous task since the strength of the connection between two nodes (i.e., robots) can change rapidly in time or even disappear. This paper compares two autonomous and realistic marsupial strategies for initial deployment in unknown scenarios, in the context of swarm exploration: Random and Extended Spiral of Theodorus. These are based on a hierarchical approach, in which exploring agents, named scouts, are autonomously deployed through explicit cooperation with supporting agents, denoted as rangers. Experimental results with a team of heterogeneous robots are conducted using both real and virtual robots. Results show the effectiveness of the methods, using a performance metric based on dispersion. Conclusions drawn in this work pave the way for a whole series of possible new approaches.

Keywords ─ Marsupial robots, swarm robotics, communication constraints, fault-tolerance, initial deployment.

Full text

You may ask Rui P. Rocha for an electronic copy of this publication’s full text by e-mail:
.

Please select for your message’s subject ‘Requesting Rui Rocha’s electronic copy’ and include on the message’s body your full name, title and affiliation, why do you need to access the publication and the BibTeX information below.

BibTeX

@ARTICLE(Couceiro_et_al_14b,

AUTHOR = "M. S. Couceiro and D. Portugal and R. P. Rocha and N. M. F. Ferreira",

TITLE = "Marsupial Teams of Robots: Deployment of Miniature Robots for Swarm Exploration under Communication Constraints",

JOURNAL = "Robotica",

VOLUME = "32",

NUMBER = "7",

YEAR = "2014",

MONTH = "Oct.",

PAGES = "1017-1038"

)

(top of the page)

Last update: 17/09/2014