Abstract:
Multi-robot pattern formation has a wide range of
applications, such as inspection of hazardous regions, parallel
and simultaneous transportation of load, area exploration,
etc. This problem has been investigated both from the scientific
and engineering perspectives. There is a whole body
of experimental work on robot formations, and at the same,
there is no dearth of theoretical research addressing the same
problem. Several assumptions considered in these theoretical
studies are overly simplified with an understanding that they
will somehow be reasonably approximated. Although these
theoretical research works are sound and complete, they do
not show how an actual implementation compares with the
idealized scenario. A new practical model is suggested in
this paper for geometric pattern formation. This model uses
approximate solutions to some of the assumptions considered
in theoretical research works. A novel algorithm, STATE, is
proposed and is shown to perform better than Défago and
Konagaya’s algorithm for uniform circle formation. Both the
algorithms are implemented on a real multi-robot test bed.
A new framework for inter-robot communication is developed.
It supports seamless asynchronous and non-blocking
robot-to-computer, and robot-to-robot communication.