Asymmetric Global Order to Control a Group of Anonymous Mobile Robots by Using Loose-Coupled Local Interactions

Abstract

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a system by which a global order is emerged by local interactions among distributed agents. To control a group of distributed agents, we need providing motion commands to the agents. However, employing a global communication system is not feasible for simple and anonymous agents. Thus, we propose a system inspired by slime molds. We utilize phase gradients emerged by oscillators programmed in the agents. We propose and implement a novel interaction method that incorporates relative orientation among agents in order to emerge asymmetric phase gradient. By analysis and experiments we verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.