Investigation on communication aspects of multiple swarm networked robotics

Authors: SHAHZAD ALI, ZENIB KHAN, AHMAD DIN, MAHMOOD UL HASSAN

Abstract: Swarm robotics is an emerging field of robotics and is envisioned to play a vital role in surveillance and search/rescue operations. Most of the existing works on swarm networked robotics address the problem of formation movement or the communication aspects within a swarm. However, none of the existing works consider multiple swarms. Even for the case of single swarms, researchers use unrealistic assumptions with respect to communication, leading to unrealistic results. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of multiple swarms considering realistic assumptions with respect to communication. To the best of our knowledge, it will be the first time where the performance is evaluated for the case of multiple swarms while considering realistic assumptions with respect to communication. Our simulation results shed light on the roles of three different types of communication associated with multiple swarms with respect to multiple performance metrics.

Keywords: Networked swarm robotics, formation movement, communication, pattern formation

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