Wheeled mobile robot control using virtual pheromones and neural networks

International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

et al. 2016

Virtual pheromone trailing has successfully been demonstrated for navigation of multiple robots to achieve a collective goal. Many previous works use a pheromone deposition scheme that assumes perfect localization of the robot, in which, robots precisely know their location in the map. Therefore, pheromones are always assumed to be deposited at the desired place. However, it is difficult to achieve perfect localization of the robot due to errors in encoders and sensors attached to the robot and the dynamics of the environment in which the robot operates. In real-world scenarios, there is always some uncertainty associated in estimating the pose (i.e. position and orientation) of the mobile service robot. Failing to model this uncertainty would result in service robots depositing pheromones at wrong places. A leading robot in the multi-robot system might completely fail to localize itself in the environment and be lost. Other robots trailing its pheromones will end up being in entirely wrong areas of the map. This results in a ''blind leading the blind'' scenario that reduces the efficiency of the multi-robot system. We propose a pheromone deposition algorithm, which models the uncertainty of the robot's pose. We demonstrate, through experiments in both simulated and real environments, that modeling the uncertainty in pheromone deposition is crucial, and that the proposed algorithm can model the uncertainty well.

“…Figure 22. Blue areas show pheromones above threshold (10). Total pheromones at location L12 were 8.15.…”

Section: Results In Real Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pheromone Depositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avoiding blind leading the blind

International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

et al. 2016

“…A review of the research on pheromone signalling can be found in Reference [6]. Previous related works have mainly focused on the swarm behavior using the attractive-pheromone mechanism [7] for process control [8], communication [9], and swarm behavior [10]. A multiagent exploration algorithm was proposed in Reference [11] in which a coverage algorithm was proposed with pheromone barriers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bio-Inspired Algorithm for Autonomous Task Coordination of Multiple Mobile Robots

5th International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications

et al. 2018

Efficient task co-ordination is an important problem in multirobot systems. The explicit programming of each robot to perform specific tasks (e.g., cleaning) is too cumbersome and inefficient, as the areas to serve in a map may vary with time. Moreover, the number of available robots to serve may also vary, as some of the robots may be charging and not available. Improper task division can cause two or more robots to serve the same areas of the map, which is a waste of computation and resources. Hence, there is a need for a simpler scheme for the autonomous task co-ordination of multiple robots without the need for explicit programming. This paper presents a bioinspired algorithm that uses the attractive and repelling behavior of pheromones for autonomous task co-ordination. The proposed algorithm uses a node representation of navigational paths for autonomous exploration. This repelling mechanism also allows robots to capture areas or subareas of the map so that there is efficient task co-ordination, and robots work without interruption from other robots. We show through experiments that the proposed scheme enables multiple service robots to intelligently perform co-operative tasks without any explicit programming or commands.

“…We denote anti-aphrodisiac pheromones as 'anti-pheromones' in this paper. Previous works on pheromone signalling in robotics has been mainly concentrated to mimic the swarm behaviour using attractive pheromones [14] with application in process control [3], communication [6,7], and to mimic swarm behaviour [17]. Tasks like exploration and surveillance requires that multiple robots disperse themselves in the region to cover maximum possible area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On a bio-inspired hybrid pheromone signalling for efficient map exploration of multiple mobile service robots

et al. 2016

Artif Life Robotics

This paper presents a novel bio-inspired hybrid communication framework that incorporates the repelling behaviour of anti-aphrodisiac pheromones and attractive behaviour of pheromones for efficient map exploration of multiple mobile service robots. The proposed communication framework presents a scheme for robots to efficiently serve large areas of map, while cooperating with each other through proper pheromone deposition. This eliminates the need of explicitly programming each service robot to serve particular areas of the map. The paths taken by robots are represented as nodes across which pheromones are deposited. This reduces the search space for tracking pheromones and reduces data size to be communicated between robots. A novel pheromone deposition model is presented which takes into account the uncertainty in the robot's position. This eliminates robots to deposit pheromones at wrong places when localization fails. The framework also integrates the pheromone signalling mechanism in landmark based Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) localization and allows the robots to capture areas or sub-areas of the map, to improve the localization. A scheme to resolve conflicts through local communication is presented. We discuss, through experimental and simulation results, two cases of floor cleaning task, and surveillance task, performed by multiple robots. Results show that the proposed scheme enables multiple service robots to perform cooperative tasks intelligently without any explicit programming.