Experimental validation of source seeking with a switching strategy

• Published in: 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation pp. 3835 - 3840
• Main Authors: Wencen Wu, Fumin Zhang
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.05.2011
• Subjects: Attenuation; Noise measurement; Robot sensing systems; Signal to noise ratio; Switches
• ISBN: 9781612843865; 1612843867
• ISSN: 1050-4729; 2577-087X
• DOI: 10.1109/ICRA.2011.5979597

We design a switching strategy for a group of robots to search for a local minimum of an unknown noisy scalar field. Starting with individual exploration, the robots switch to cooperative exploration only when they are not able to locate the field minimum based on the information collected individually. In order to test and demonstrate the switching strategy in real-world environment, we implement the switching strategy on a multi-robot test-bed. The behaviors of a group of robots are compared when different parameters for exploration are adopted. Especially, we observe the effect of memory lengths on the switching behaviors as predicted by theoretical results. The experimental results also justify the effects of different formation sizes and noise attenuation levels on the performance of the cooperative H ∞ filter that are utilized in the cooperative exploration phase.