Swarm-Enabling Technology for Multi-Robot Systems

Abstract

Swarm robotics has experienced a rapid expansion in recent years, primarily fueled by specialized multi-robot systems developed to achieve dedicated collective actions. These specialized platforms are, in general, designed with swarming considerations at the front and center. Key hardware and software elements required for swarming are often deeply embedded and integrated with the particular system. However, given the noticeable increase in the number of low-cost mobile robots readily available, practitioners and hobbyists may start considering to assemble full-fledged swarms by minimally retrofitting such mobile platforms with a swarm-enabling technology. Here, we report one possible embodiment of such a technology-an integrated combination of hardware and software-designed to enable the assembly and the study of swarming in a range of general-purpose robotic systems. This is achieved by combining a modular and transferable software toolbox with a hardware suite composed of a collection of low-cost and off-theshelf components. The developed technology can be ported to a relatively vast range of robotic platforms-such as land and surface vehicles-with minimal changes and high levels of scalability. This swarm-enabling technology has successfully been implemented on two distinct distributed multi-robot systems, a swarm of mobile marine buoys and a team of commercial terrestrial robots. We have tested the effectiveness of both of these distributed robotic systems in performing collective exploration and search scenarios, as well as other classical cooperative behaviors. Experimental results on different swarm behaviors are reported for the two platforms in uncontrolled environments and without any supporting infrastructure. The design of the associated software library allows for a seamless switch to other cooperative behaviors-e.g., leader-follower heading consensus and collision avoidance, and also offers the possibility to simulate newly designed collective behaviors prior to their implementation onto the platforms. This feature greatly facilitates behavior-based design, i.e., the design of new swarming behaviors, with the possibility to simulate them prior to physically test them.

Fault Detection in a Swarm of Physical Robots Based on Behavioral Outlier Detection

“…The robots are situated in a 2.1 × 1.2 m 2 area surrounded by white walls. We evaluate our fault-detection approach in a series of experiments where the robots perform classic swarm robotics behaviors, namely aggregation, dispersion, and homing-behaviors widely used in previous studies, both in simulation and in physical robot laboratory experiments [19], [20]. The robots are placed at random locations and with random orientations in the beginning of each experiment.…”

A Multi-Robot Coverage Path Planning Algorithm for the Environment With Multiple Land Cover Types

“…As soon as the leader starts moving, each member is enabled to move in the same direction by staying coordinated with the leader and maintaining the desired formation pattern. Considering the noticeable increase in the number of low-cost mobile robots readily available, Reference [18] reported one possible embodiment of such a technology-an integrated combination of hardware and software-designed to enable the assembly and the study of swarming in a range of general-purpose robotic systems. This is achieved by combining a modular and transferable software toolbox with a hardware suite composed of a collection of low-cost and off-the-shelf components.…”

Decentralized Multi-Floor Exploration by a Swarm of Miniature Robots Teaming with Wall-Climbing Units

“…switching) communication network where nodes can be added or removed without compromising the MRS operations. To grant ORION these features, the robots are equipped with a swarm-enabling unit (SEU) based on the specifications detailed in [29]. This SEU is platformagnostic and has successfully been used in a swarm of land robots with varying interaction network topologies [5] and in a heterogeneous swarm of surface vehicles performing a range of cooperative control strategies [12], [13].…”