Distributed multi-robot search in the real-world using modified particle swarm optimization

A challenging issue in multi-robot system is to design effective algorithms which enable robots to collaborate with one another in order to search and find objects of interest. Unlike most of the research on PSO (particle swarm optimization) that adopts the method to a virtual multi-agent system, in this paper, we present a framework to use a modified PSO (MPSO) algorithm in a multi-robot system for search task in real-world environments. We modify the algorithm to optimize the total path traveled by robots. Experiments with multiple robots are provided.