The SDR Experience: Experiments with a Large-Scale Heterogeneous Mobile Robot Team

Abstract

This paper reports on experiments conducted as part of the DARPA SDR (Software for Distributed Robotics) program. The core challenge for this program is to develop a system capable of carrying out ‘locate-and-protect’ missions: the system must be able to deploy a large number of robots into an unexplored building, map the building interior, locate a valued object, detect and track intruders, and transmit all of the above information to a remote observer/operator. To satisfy these requirements, we have developed a large heterogeneous robot team consisting of approximately 80 robots. This paper sketches the key technical elements of this system, and presents selected results from externally supervised experiments conducted in a 600 m 2 indoor environment.