Random Walk Exploration for Swarm Mapping

Kegeleirs, Miquel; Ramos, David Garzón; Birattari, Mauro

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-25332-5_19

Cited by 35 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The four low-level behaviors are exploration, go-to-color, avoid-color, and waggle; and the four transition conditions are black-floor, gray-floor, color-detected, and fixed-probability. In exploration, the robot moves randomly describing a ballistic motion behavior (Kegeleirs et al, 2019 ). Go-to-color and avoid-color are behaviors in which the robot moves toward or away from objects that display a specific color ( c )—if the specific color is not perceived, the robot performs exploration.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phormica: Photochromic Pheromone Release and Detection System for Stigmergic Coordination in Robot Swarms

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Stigmergy is a form of indirect communication and coordination in which agents modify the environment to pass information to their peers. In nature, animals use stigmergy by, for example, releasing pheromone that conveys information to other members of their species. A few systems in swarm robotics research have replicated this process by introducing the concept of artificial pheromone. In this paper, we present Phormica, a system to conduct experiments in swarm robotics that enables a swarm of e-puck robots to release and detect artificial pheromone. Phormica emulates pheromone-based stigmergy thanks to the ability of robots to project UV light on the ground, which has been previously covered with a photochromic material. As a proof of concept, we test Phormica on three collective missions in which robots act collectively guided by the artificial pheromone they release and detect. Experimental results indicate that a robot swarm can effectively self-organize and act collectively by using stigmergic coordination based on the artificial pheromone provided by Phormica.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phormica: Photochromic Pheromone Release and Detection System for Stigmergic Coordination in Robot Swarms

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is only recently that Ramachandran et al (2020) performed a real swarm SLAM experiment, which evaluates the efficiency of the so-called Informed Correlated Lévy Walk—i.e., a variant of random walk. Kegeleirs et al (2019) performed another swarm SLAM experiment. A swarm of 10 e-puck robots had to map different bounded indoor environments using different exploration schemes.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Path planning is usually the adopted strategy in multi-robot SLAM, but other exploration schemes such as Frontier-based exploration or potential fields have also been studied ( Rone and Ben-Tzvi, 2013 ). However, in swarm robotics, simpler exploration schemes are generally used, in particular random walks ( Dimidov et al, 2016 ; Kegeleirs et al, 2019 ). A straightforward option would be to adapt path planning techniques to robot swarms.…”

Section: Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Swarm SLAM: Challenges and Perspectives

2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A robot swarm is a decentralized system characterized by locality of sensing and communication, self-organization, and redundancy. These characteristics allow robot swarms to achieve scalability, flexibility and fault tolerance, properties that are especially valuable in the context of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), specifically in unknown environments that evolve over time. So far, research in SLAM has mainly focused on single- and centralized multi-robot systems—i.e., non-swarm systems. While these systems can produce accurate maps, they are typically not scalable, cannot easily adapt to unexpected changes in the environment, and are prone to failure in hostile environments. Swarm SLAM is a promising approach to SLAM as it could leverage the decentralized nature of a robot swarm and achieve scalable, flexible and fault-tolerant exploration and mapping. However, at the moment of writing, swarm SLAM is a rather novel idea and the field lacks definitions, frameworks, and results. In this work, we present the concept of swarm SLAM and its constraints, both from a technical and an economical point of view. In particular, we highlight the main challenges of swarm SLAM for gathering, sharing, and retrieving information. We also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this approach against traditional multi-robot SLAM. We believe that swarm SLAM will be particularly useful to produce abstract maps such as topological or simple semantic maps and to operate under time or cost constraints.

show abstract

“…The final study, bridge inspection, robotic solutions have generally used single UAVs (Murphy et al, 2011 ; Khaloo et al, 2018 ) and computer vision to process captured images (Yeum and Dyke, 2015 ). Swarm based mapping algorithms such as Kegeleirs et al ( 2019 ) have been proposed which could be used for this application.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutual Shaping in Swarm Robotics: User Studies in Fire and Rescue, Storage Organization, and Bridge Inspection

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many real-world applications have been suggested in the swarm robotics literature. However, there is a general lack of understanding of what needs to be done for robot swarms to be useful and trusted by users in reality. This paper aims to investigate user perception of robot swarms in the workplace, and inform design principles for the deployment of future swarms in real-world applications. Three qualitative studies with a total of 37 participants were done across three sectors: fire and rescue, storage organization, and bridge inspection. Each study examined the users' perceptions using focus groups and interviews. In this paper, we describe our findings regarding: the current processes and tools used in these professions and their main challenges; attitudes toward robot swarms assisting them; and the requirements that would encourage them to use robot swarms. We found that there was a generally positive reaction to robot swarms for information gathering and automation of simple processes. Furthermore, a human in the loop is preferred when it comes to decision making. Recommendations to increase trust and acceptance are related to transparency, accountability, safety, reliability, ease of maintenance, and ease of use. Finally, we found that mutual shaping, a methodology to create a bidirectional relationship between users and technology developers to incorporate societal choices in all stages of research and development, is a valid approach to increase knowledge and acceptance of swarm robotics. This paper contributes to the creation of such a culture of mutual shaping between researchers and users, toward increasing the chances of a successful deployment of robot swarms in the physical realm.

show abstract

Random Walk Exploration for Swarm Mapping

Cited by 35 publications

References 20 publications

Phormica: Photochromic Pheromone Release and Detection System for Stigmergic Coordination in Robot Swarms

Phormica: Photochromic Pheromone Release and Detection System for Stigmergic Coordination in Robot Swarms

Swarm SLAM: Challenges and Perspectives

Mutual Shaping in Swarm Robotics: User Studies in Fire and Rescue, Storage Organization, and Bridge Inspection

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About