Abstract
Robotics networks are an emerging technology that has a wide range of applications. Robots are used for many military and civilian applications. Applications such as search-and-rescue operations or area monitoring during an environmental disaster, cannot be effectively carried out by a single robot, but rather are carried out by several robots forming what is called a “robotic network”. In rescue operations, for example, robots can be used to help to discover bodies under the rubble or even to assist the injured. One of the main challenges in these applications is how to deploy the robots without central coordination. Virtual force (VF) technique appears to be one of the prominent approaches to perform multi-robot deployment autonomously. However, the effectiveness of this approach depends on how its parameters are calibrated in order to achieve the required deployment. There are two important factors: attractive force ( w a ) and repulsive force ( w r ). In this work, we investigate the best settings of these two factors in order to accommodate different kinds of scenarios. Additionally, and for the first time, an energy-aware virtual force approach is proposed to balance energy consumption among deployed robots and consequently maximize the network lifetime. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted to study and explore the effectiveness of the proposed settings. Finally, a proof of concept experiment using LegoTM Mindstorm robots is carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of these settings.
Highlights
Robotics networks have gained a lot of attention in the last decade due to the major technological advances that have widened the scope of their applications
In this work, we present an energy aware virtual force that considers the heterogeneous level of energy among robots such that the ones with a low level of energy will be able to switch to a power saving mode and maintain their energy level when possible
We have investigated and provided guidelines on how to set virtual force
Summary
Robotics networks have gained a lot of attention in the last decade due to the major technological advances that have widened the scope of their applications. Robot deployment can be done manually, by placing each node in a pre-determined position in an area of interest such that some desired coverage and connectivity properties are ensured [1,2]. Robots may dynamically adjust their positions by self-spreading such that the covered area is maximized while maintaining the inter-robot connectivity [3,4,5,6,7,8]. The reactive nature of robots and the applications in which a robotics network is effective makes the deterministic placement impractical and adaptive self-deployment of robots more appropriate. The need arises for a distributed method that enables the robots to be self-deployed and self-organized to accomplish a certain task. Virtual force-based [3] deployment is one of the most commonly used distributed algorithms
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