Abstract
We consider a swarm of robots equipped with an infrared range and bearing device that is able both to make estimates of the relative distance and angle between two robots in line-of-sight and to transfer data between them. Through the infrared range and bearing device, the robots create a line-of-sight mobile ad hoc network. We investigate different ways to implement a swarm-level distributed navigation function exploiting the routing information gathered within this network. In the scenario we consider, a number of different events present themselves in different locations. To be serviced, each event requires that a robot with the appropriate skills comes to its location. We present two swarm-level solutions for guiding the navigation of the selected robots towards the events. We use a bio-inspired ad hoc network routing protocol to dynamically find and maintain paths between a robot and an event location in the mobile line-of-sight network, and use them to guide the robot to its goal. The performance of the two approaches is studied in a number of network scenarios presenting different density, mobility, and bandwidth availability.
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Di Caro, G.A., Ducatelle, F., Gambardella, L.M. (2009). Wireless Communications for Distributed Navigation in Robot Swarms. In: Giacobini, M., et al. Applications of Evolutionary Computing. EvoWorkshops 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5484. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01129-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01129-0_3
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