Effect of Leader Placement on Robotic Swarm Control
Effect of Leader Placement on Robotic Swarm Control
复制标题
领导者放置对机器人群体控制的影响
DOI：
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发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
M. Goodrich
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Rohan Tiwari;P. Jain;S. Butail;Sujit P. Baliyarasimhuni;M. Goodrich
人类对机器人群体的控制需要选择一些有影响力的领导者，他们能够有效而稳健地领导集体。然而，关于领导地位的影响的明确衡量标准尚未得到充分研究。对动物系统的研究表明，发挥强大耦合作用的领导者可能位于前面，在那里他们提供能量效益，或者在中间，在那里他们可以被群体的大部分人看到。在模拟的两种不同规模的机器人群体中，我们系统地改变了领导者的数量和领导者的位置，并评估了它们对转向效率和能量消耗的影响。特别是，我们分析了将领导者放置在前面，中间和外围对机器人代理群在执行单个转弯以达到预期目标方向时收敛时间和横向加速度的影响。研究结果表明，领导者位于中间和外围的集群收敛时间比领导者位于前方的集群收敛时间短，而三种布局策略之间的横向加速度没有差异。我们还发现，向目标方向收敛的时间随着群体中领导者百分比的增加而减少，尽管该值在30%的领导者百分比之后缓慢衰减。随着群体规模的增加，外围的领导者在减少收敛时间方面的效果越来越差。最后，对leader的位置和覆盖范围的进一步分析表明，在执行机动时，群中的前沿leader倾向于扩大他们的覆盖范围并向中心移动。本研究的结果有望为更有效的群体互动系统的领导者安置策略提供信息。
Human control of a robotic swarm entails selecting a few influential leaders who can steer the collective efficiently and robustly. However, a clear measure of influence with respect to leader position is not adequately studied. Studies with animal systems have shown that leaders who exert strong couplings may be located in front, where they provide energy benefits, or in the middle, where they can be seen by a larger section of the group. In this paper, we systematically vary number of leaders and leader positions in simulated robotic swarms of two different sizes, and assess their effect on steering effectiveness and energy expenditure. In particular, we analyze the effect of placing leaders in the front, middle, and periphery, on the time to converge and lateral acceleration of a swarm of robotic agents as it performs a single turn to reach the desired goal direction. Our results show that swarms with leaders in the middle and periphery take less time to converge than swarms with leaders in the front, while the lateral acceleration between the three placement strategies is not different. We also find that the time to converge towards the goal direction reduces with the increase in percentage of leaders in the swarm, although this value decays slowly beyond the percentage of leaders at 30%. As the swarm size is increased, we find that the leaders in the periphery become less effective in reducing the time to converge. Finally, closer analysis of leader placement and coverage reveals that front leaders within the swarm tend to expand their coverage and move towards the center as the maneuver is performed. Results from this study are expected to inform leader placement strategies towards more effective human swarm interaction systems.