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Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems pp 17–30Cite as

Communication-Restricted Exploration for Search Teams

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Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics ((SPAR,volume 6))

Abstract

Exploring an unknown environment comes with risks and complications, and in some cases an environment may be too dangerous for humans to explore, but immediate exploration is critical, as in the aftermath of an earthquake. Robots, however, can be deployed to seek out points of interest and report back to the waiting human operators. One aspect of a disaster scenario is that communication is often more limited than we are accustomed to in everyday life, so these robots cannot rely on having constant contact with the outside world, or even with all other robots in the environment. In this paper, we present two algorithms for a small team of robots to explore an unknown environment, and use both simulation and experiments with physical robots to demonstrate the algorithms’ performance. We provide proofs of correctness and guarantee full coverage of the environment, even with attrition.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Minnesota, Minneanapolis, MN, USA

    Elizabeth A. Jensen, London Lowmanstone & Maria Gini

Authors
  1. Elizabeth A. Jensen
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  2. London Lowmanstone
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  3. Maria Gini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elizabeth A. Jensen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Roderich Groß

  2. Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Andreas Kolling

  3. School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy (SEMTE), Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Spring Berman

  4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Emilio Frazzoli

  5. ENAC, IIE, DIAL, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Alcherio Martinoli

  6. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Fumitoshi Matsuno

  7. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Melvin Gauci

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Jensen, E.A., Lowmanstone, L., Gini, M. (2018). Communication-Restricted Exploration for Search Teams. In: Groß, R., et al. Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73008-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73008-0_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73006-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73008-0

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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