IAES International Journal of Robotics and Automation (IJRA)
Vol 2, No 1: March 2013

Flexible Morphogenesis based Formation Control for Multi-Robot Systems

Jan Carlo Barca (Monash University)
Eugene Eu-Juin Lee (Monash University)
Ahmet Sekercioglu (Monash University)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Mar 2013

Abstract

Inspired by how biological cells communicate with each other at a cell-to-cell level; morphogenesis emerged to be an effective way for local communication between homogenous robots in multi-robot systems. In this paper, we present the first steps towards a scalable morphogenesis style formation control technique, which address the drawbacks associated with current morphogenesis type formation control techniques, including their inability to distribute robots evenly across target shapes. A series of experiments, which demonstrate that the proposed technique enables groups of non-holonomic ground moving robots to generate formations in less than 9 seconds with three robots and less than 22 seconds with five robots, is also presented. These experiments furthermore reveal that the proposed technique enables groups of robots to generate formations without significantly increasing the total travel distance when faced with obstacles. This work is an important contribution to multi-robot control theory as history has shown that the success of groups often depends on efficient and robust formation control.

Copyrights © 2013






Journal Info

Abbrev

IJRA

Publisher

Subject

Automotive Engineering Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Description

Robots are becoming part of people's everyday social lives and will increasingly become so. In future years, robots may become caretaker assistants for the elderly, or academic tutors for our children, or medical assistants, day care assistants, or psychological counselors. Robots may become our ...