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Organic Computing — A Paradigm Shift for Complex Systems pp 531–543Cite as

Energy-Awareness in Self-organising Robotic Exploration Teams

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Part of the book series: Autonomic Systems ((ASYS,volume 1))

Abstract

In the Smart Teams project, we consider a team of autonomous robots that have to cooperate in order to fulfil tasks like exploring an unknown terrain, assigning subtasks among each other in a fair way, or building and maintaining communication infrastructures. The challenge we face in this work is the locality constraint: a strategy for the team is not dictated by a global control, but consists of local strategies executed by the robots. “Local” means that the only input a robot can base its decision on is the information it can gather in its local environment.

In this article, we report about our research within the project related to the problem of building a short communication chain: consider two stations in the plane and a long, winding chain of mobile robots connecting the stations, i.e. consecutive robots are within viewing distance. How much energy must be spent in order to move the robots to the straight line between the stations using local strategies only? We present several algorithms to minimise the energy spent both for motion and for measurements (sensing the environment).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Heinz Nixdorf Institute and Computer Science Department, University of Paderborn, 33102, Paderborn, Germany

    Bastian Degener, Barbara Kempkes & Friedhelm Meyer auf der Heide

Authors
  1. Bastian Degener
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  2. Barbara Kempkes
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  3. Friedhelm Meyer auf der Heide
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Correspondence to Bastian Degener .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Institute for Systems Engineering, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Appelstr. 4, Hannover, 30167, Germany

    Christian Müller-Schloer

  2. , Institute AIFB, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Kaiserstr. 89, Karlsruhe, 76133, Germany

    Hartmut Schmeck

  3. , Department of Computer Science, Universität Augsburg, Universitätsstr. 6a, Augsburg, 86159, Germany

    Theo Ungerer

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Degener, B., Kempkes, B., Meyer auf der Heide, F. (2011). Energy-Awareness in Self-organising Robotic Exploration Teams. In: Müller-Schloer, C., Schmeck, H., Ungerer, T. (eds) Organic Computing — A Paradigm Shift for Complex Systems. Autonomic Systems, vol 1. Springer, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-0130-0_35

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-0130-0_35

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Basel

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-0348-0129-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-0348-0130-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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