DOTS: An Open Testbed for Industrial Swarm Robotic Solutions

Abstract

We present DOTS, a new open access testbed for industrial swarm robotics experimentation. It consists of 20 fast agile robots with high sensing and computational performance, and real-world payload capability. They are housed in an arena equipped with private 5G, motion capture, multiple cameras, and openly accessible via an online portal. We reduce barriers to entry by providing a complete platform-agnostic pipeline to develop, simulate, and deploy experimental applications to the swarm. We showcase the testbed capabilities with a swarm logistics application, autonomously and reliably searching for and retrieving multiple cargo carriers.

TacMMs: Tactile Mobile Manipulators for Warehouse Automation

“…1) DOTS mobile robot system: this mobile robot features a wheeled omnidirectional base with 4 cameras mounted in the base and an actuated lifting platform (Fig 2). The overall system includes an integrated remote development platform and physical mobile robots [13], which allows researchers to develop this system in simulation before physical experimentation. The integrated remote development platform is based on Robot Operating System version 2 (ROS2) and utilizes Gazebo.…”

“…Here we use an optical tactile sensor called the TacTip (Tactile fingerTip) [11], [12] which has a 3D-printed soft dome-like structure mounted over an internal camera and lighting. This sensor is well-suited for Tactile Mobile Manipulators (TacMMs), being of the right size and shape to mount on the top liftable platform of DOTS (Distributed Organization and Transport System) mobile robots designed for cooperative automation [13]. Furthermore, both the TacTip and DOTS are open-source and easily fabricated, enabling others to customize and build upon this work.…”

A SwarmAI Testbed for Workforce Development and Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Research

“…Several projects have developed swarm testbeds, including for educational contexts. Examples include the Robotarium 9 for remote swarm algorithm development, as well as platforms for industrial swarm robotics 10 and human robot teaming 11 . Due to their distributed, wireless nature, swarms have also been used as an internet of things testbed 12 .…”