Optimized Decentralized Swarm Communication Algorithms for Efficient Task Allocation and Power Consumption in Swarm Robotics

Abstract

Unanimous action to achieve specific goals is crucial for the success of a robotic swarm. This requires clearly defined roles and precise communication between the robots of a swarm. An optimized task allocation algorithm defines the mechanism and logistics of decision-making that enable the robotic swarm to achieve such common goals. With more nodes, the traffic of messages that are required to communicate inside the swarm relatively increases to maintain decentralization. Increased traffic eliminates real-time capabilities, which is an essential aspect of a swarm system. The aim of this research is to reduce execution time while retaining efficient power consumption rates. In this research, two novel decentralized swarm communication algorithms are proposed, namely Clustered Dynamic Task Allocation–Centralized Loop (CDTA-CL) and Clustered Dynamic Task Allocation–Dual Loop (CDTA-DL), both inspired by the Clustered Dynamic Task Allocation (CDTA) algorithm. Moreover, a simulation tool was developed to simulate different swarm-clustered communication algorithms in order to calculate the total communication time and consumed power. The results of testing the proposed CDTA-DL and CDTA-CL against the CDTA attest that the proposed algorithm consumes substantially less time. Both CDTA-DL and CDTA-CL have achieved a significant speedup of 75.976% and 54.4% over CDTA, respectively.