Formation Deployment of Cooperative Source Seeking by Multiple Robots: Algorithms and Experiments

Abstract

In order to deploy multi-robot into a 2-D desired formation during the seeking process, this paper proposes a hybrid seeking algorithm with the formation deployment. Firstly, a reaction-advection-diffusion equation is quoted to describe the movement of multiple mobile robots, 1-D formation deployment algorithm is introduced and expended to 2-D application. And then combines with the extreme seeking algorithm to obtain the hybrid seeking algorithm. Based on the improved extremum seeking algorithm and the 2-D formation deployment algorithm, a multi-robot hybrid seeking algorithm with formation deployment is proposed. To simplify other robots’ following, a virtual trajectory of the leader robot is obtained according to its searching features. The robots’ behavior is decomposed into searching behavior and formation deployment behavior. The condition and the method of changing these behaviors’ weights online are provided. With the algorithm, multi-robot can deploy into a desired 2-D formation during seeking procesśSimulation results with different initial positions and different platforms are analyzed to verify the convergence of the multi-robot’s hybrid seeking algorithm, and the convergence is independent of the multi-robot’s initial positions.