Self-configurable mobile robot swarms with hole repair capability

Abstract

We address the problem of deploying a swarm of autonomous mobile robots toward building an ad hoc network of robotic sensors with spatial uniform density. For the purpose, each of the robots configures themselves into an area with geographical constraints through local interactions with two adjacent neighboring robots. The basic idea underlying this work is that robots can be thought of as liquid particles that change their positions conforming to the shape of the container they occupy. The main challenge is how to cope with the accuracy limitations of sensors and possible holes in the configuration. Considering such realistic conditions, the convergence of the proposed method is proved using Lyapunov’s theorem. The proposed method is verified to be effective through the simulation for the secure deployments of robotic sensor network.