Swarm robotics:design and implementation

Abstract

This project presents a swarming and herding behaviour using simple robots. The main goal is to demonstrate the applicability of artificial intelligence (AI) in simple robotics that can then be scaled to industrial and consumer markets to further the ability of automation. AI can be achieved in many different ways; this paper explores the possible platforms on which to build a simple AI robots from consumer grade microcontrollers. Emphasis on simplicity is the main focus of this paper. Cheap and 8 bit microcontrollers were used as the brain of each robot in a decentralized swarm environment were each robot is autonomous but still a part of the whole. These simple robots don’t communicate directly with each other. They will utilize simple IR sensors to sense each other and simple limit switches to sense other obstacles in their environment. Their main objective is to assemble at certain location after initial start from random locations, and after converging they would move as a single unit without collisions. Using readily available microcontrollers and simple circuit design, semiconsistent swarming behaviour was achieved. These robots don’t follow a set path but will react dynamically to different scenarios, guided by their simple AI algorithm.