Distributed Algorithms for Systems of Autonomous Mobile Robots

Abstract

AbstractOver the last five decades, mobile robots have been the focus of extensive research and development activities, with numerous applications for industrial tasks, military operations, search and rescue missions and space exploration, as well as some home applications.Systems consisting of a group of autonomously operating mobile robots (sometimes referred to as robot swarms) have attracted considerable interest throughout the past twenty years, due to their potential for providing flexible, low-cost solutions in hazardous situations (e.g., military operations, toxic environments or fire fighting). The idea is to deal with such applications using swarms consisting of many small and simple robots, with very limited capabilities (e.g., low energy sources, limited communication means and weak processors). The use of tiny, functionally simple and cheap robots may make it acceptable to lose some of the robots, so long as the team manages to achieve its collective goals.