Artificial potential field controllers for robust communications in a network of swarm robots

An active area of research in the robotics community is "swarm control," where many simple robots work together to execute tasks which are beyond the capability of any single robot acting alone. Yet in order for the swarm members to work together effectively they must maintain a reliable and robust wireless communication network among them. The goal of this project is to investigate motion control laws which fulfill the dual and sometimes conflicting requirements of executing a primary mission (e.g. search and rescue) while maintaining a robust mobile wireless communication network among the swarm members. Three different spatial requirements for robust communication are considered in this project: proximity, line of sight and redundancy. To this end, several artificial potential fields have been developed and simulated to determine their success in controlling the swarm. The strengths and weaknesses, the design process and the interaction of the controllers constitute the heart of the paper. At a higher level, we address the challenge of how to compose these motion control laws to achieve the primary mission in a meaningful way.

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