Multi Robot System Dynamics and Path Tracking

Abstract

The Leader detecting and following are one of the main challenges in designing a leader-follower multi-robot system, in addition to the challenge of achieving the formation between the robots, while tracking the leader. The biological system is one of the main sources of inspiration for understanding and designing such multi-robot systems, especially, the aggregations that follow an external stimulus such as light. In this paper, a multi-robot system in which the robots are following a spotlight is designed based on the behavior of the Artemia aggregations. Three models are designed: kinematic and two dynamic models. The kinematic model reveals the light attraction behavior of the Artemia aggregations. The dynamic model will be derived based on the newton equation of forces and its parameters are evaluated by two methods: first, a direct method based on the physical structure of the robot and, second, the Least Square Parameter Estimation method. Several experiments are implemented in order to check the success of the three proposed systems and compare their performance. The experiments are divided into three scenarios of simulation according to three paths: the straight line, circle, zigzag path. The V-Rep software has been used for the simulation and the results appeared the success of the proposed system and the high performance of tracking the spotlight and achieving the flock formation, especially the dynamic models.