We present a behaviour-based architecture for multirobot exploration and mapping. The architecture is designed to guide the exploration in a decentralized fashion constrained to maintain local short-range communication in a mobile adhoc network. Exploration with multiple robots has been extensively studied but communication constraints have been largely ignored. We focus on the integration of such constraints and develop a behaviour-based approach. The behaviours are designed to enhance global performance and are triggered based on local information. The robots are encouraged to move together forming a mobile network and sharing relevant information for the team. To this date there is no research addressing the effects of communication and sensor constraints on decentralized co-operative exploration and mapping in structured (office like) environments. Our experimental results show that the approach performs better than previous decentralized approaches.
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