Exploration of a Simple Navigation Method for Swarm Robots Pioneered by Heterogeneity

• Published in: Journal of robotics and mechatronics Vol. 35; no. 4; pp. 948 - 956
• Main Authors: Sueoka, Yuichiro, Okada, Mitsuki, Tsunoda, Yusuke, Sugimoto, Yasuhiro, Osuka, Koichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tokyo Fuji Technology Press Co. Ltd 01.08.2023
• Subjects: Autonomous navigation; Computer architecture; Cooperation; Heterogeneity; Robots
• ISSN: 0915-3942; 1883-8049
• DOI: 10.20965/jrm.2023.p0948

In recent years, research has been conducted on swarm robot systems in which multiple autonomous mobile robots cooperate to perform tasks. Swarm robot systems are expected to perform high functionality as a group by cooperating with each other, in spite of the limited capabilities of the individual robots. This paper explores a method of simplifying swarm robot controllers as much as possible for swarm robot navigation. If we can achieve autonomous navigation of swarm robots to a target area with minimal resource consumption, they only need to implement the task execution function in that area. This leads to lower costs for swarm robot design and more efficient system architecture design. To address the above aims, this study focuses on heterogeneity. Specifically, we introduce a navigator robot that indirectly guides swarm robots named the worker robots. Heterogeneity in this paper refers to the worker robots and the navigator robots. We design the interaction between the navigator robot and the worker robots to provide a system that guides the worker robots to the destination.