Cooperative navigation in robotic swarms
Cooperative navigation in robotic swarms
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DOI：
10.1007/s11721-013-0089-4
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发表时间：
2014-03-01
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Gambardella, Luca M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Ducatelle, Frederick;Di Caro, Gianni A.;Gambardella, Luca M.
我们研究的背景下，一般的事件服务的情况下，机器人群的合作导航。在该场景中，一个或多个事件需要由具有所需技能的机器人在特定位置提供服务。我们关注的问题是如何群可以通知其成员的事件，并引导机器人的事件发生地点。我们提出了一种基于延迟容忍无线通信的解决方案：通过在它们之间转发导航信息，机器人合作地相互引导到事件位置。这种协作方法利用了群体固有的冗余、分布和移动性。同时，转发导航信息是唯一需要的合作形式。这意味着机器人在移动和定位方面是自由的，并且它们可以参与与搜索机器人的导航无关的其他任务。这使得系统在应用场景方面具有高度的灵活性，并且对于机器人故障或意外事件具有高度的鲁棒性。我们在两种不同的情况下，无论是在模拟和真实的机器人研究的算法。在第一种情况下，一个搜索机器人需要找到一个目标，而所有其他机器人都参与自己的任务。在第二种情况下，我们研究集体导航：群体中的所有机器人在两个目标之间来回导航，这是群体机器人中的一个典型场景。我们表明，在这种情况下，所提出的算法产生了协同机器人导航，它让群自组织成一个强大的动态结构。这种结构的出现提高了导航效率，让群体找到最短路径。
We study cooperative navigation for robotic swarms in the context of a general event-servicing scenario. In the scenario, one or more events need to be serviced at specific locations by robots with the required skills. We focus on the question of how the swarm can inform its members about events, and guide robots to event locations. We propose a solution based on delay-tolerant wireless communications: by forwarding navigation information between them, robots cooperatively guide each other towards event locations. Such a collaborative approach leverages on the swarm's intrinsic redundancy, distribution, and mobility. At the same time, the forwarding of navigation messages is the only form of cooperation that is required. This means that the robots are free in terms of their movement and location, and they can be involved in other tasks, unrelated to the navigation of the searching robot. This gives the system a high level of flexibility in terms of application scenarios, and a high degree of robustness with respect to robot failures or unexpected events. We study the algorithm in two different scenarios, both in simulation and on real robots. In the first scenario, a single searching robot needs to find a single target, while all other robots are involved in tasks of their own. In the second scenario, we study collective navigation: all robots of the swarm navigate back and forth between two targets, which is a typical scenario in swarm robotics. We show that in this case, the proposed algorithm gives rise to synergies in robot navigation, and it lets the swarm self-organize into a robust dynamic structure. The emergence of this structure improves navigation efficiency and lets the swarm find shortest paths.