A Multi-robot System for Adaptive Exploration of a Fast-changing Environment: Probabilistic Modeling and Experimental Study

Abstract

. Is it more efficient to use one or several robots? Will the performance of a group of robots working in a collaborative task be enhanced if the robots can communicate with one another? What learning abilities should the robot(s) be provided with for adapting to a continuously changing environment? We address these three issues in a specific task, namely learning the topography of an environment whose features change frequently. We propose a theoretical framework based on probabilistic modeling to describe the system's dynamics. The adaptive multirobot system and its dynamic environment are modeled though a set of probabilistic equations. The model gives an explicit description of the influence of the variables of the system, namely the number of worker robots, the frequency of environmental changes and the environment's configuration, on the data collecting performance of the group. It is then used to determine boundaries for these system's variables within which the learning is succ...