Distributed Algorithms for Swarm Robots

Abstract

A swarm of robots is a collection of tiny identical autonomous robots. The robots perform a given task, e.g., cleaning a big surface, moving a big object, guarding an area etc., in a collaborative framework. The goal of research in swarm robotics is to develop a low cost multi-robot system which will be at least as efficient as one big expensive unit. The field of swarm robotics has been addressed from various aspects such as artificial intelligence, mechanical and electrical engineering, motion control, robots' path planning etc. From theoretical point of view, designing deterministic algorithms for these robots to execute a particular job is an emerging and useful field of research. As the robots work individually but in collaboration, distributed algorithms are more appropriate than centralized ones. This chapter discusses the distributed framework for swarm robots and presents some reported research results as well as a few open problems.