Current implementations of decentralized multi-robot construction systems are limited to construction of rudimentary structures such as walls and clusters, or rely on the use of blueprints for regulation. Building processes that make use of blueprints are unattractive in unknown environments as they can not compensate for heterogeneities, such as irregular terrain. In nature, social insects coordinate the construction of their nests using stigmergy, a mechanism of indirect coordination that is robust and adaptive. In this paper, we propose the design of a multi-robot construction platform called the Swarm Robotics Construction System (SRoCS). The SRoCS platform is designed to leverage stigmergy in order to coordinate multi-robot construction in unknown environments.
Formation control in a robot swarm targets the overall swarm shape and relative positions of individual robots during navigation. Existing approaches often use a global reference or have limited topology flexibility. We propose a novel approach without these constraints, by extending the concept of 'mergeable nervous systems' to establish distributed asymmetric control via a self-organized wireless communication network. In simulated experiments with UAVs and mobile robots, we present a proof-of-concept for three sub-tasks of formation control: formation establishment, maintenance during motion, and deformation. We also assess the fault tolerance and scalability of our approach.
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