A distributed algorithm for circle formation by multiple mobile robots

Abstract

This paper suggests a distributed, decentralized approach for positioning multiple mobile robots in a circular formation in a semi synchronous setting. The problem of the circle formation with multiple robots which are arbitrarily placed on a 2D plane requires all robots to be uniformly positioned (i.e., at an equal angular distance of 2ŏ/N, where N = number of robots) on the circle circumference. The suggested approach uses explicit inter robot communication by way of message passing and forms a token ring based network. It uses the distributed solution of one of the classical synchronization problem often used in distributed systems, the Dining Philosopher Problem, for the robots to synchronize during their activation cycles.