Coordinated Control of Robotic Swarms in Unknown Environments

Falconi, Riccardo (2009) Coordinated Control of Robotic Swarms in Unknown Environments, [Dissertation thesis], Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna. Dottorato di ricerca in Automatica e ricerca operativa, 21 Ciclo. DOI 10.6092/unibo/amsdottorato/1657.
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Abstract

This thesis gathers the work carried out by the author in the last three years of research and it concerns the study and implementation of algorithms to coordinate and control a swarm of mobile robots moving in unknown environments. In particular, the author's attention is focused on two different approaches in order to solve two different problems. The first algorithm considered in this work deals with the possibility of decomposing a main complex task in many simple subtasks by exploiting the decentralized implementation of the so called \emph{Null Space Behavioral} paradigm. This approach to the problem of merging different subtasks with assigned priority is slightly modified in order to handle critical situations that can be detected when robots are moving through an unknown environment. In fact, issues can occur when one or more robots got stuck in local minima: a smart strategy to avoid deadlock situations is provided by the author and the algorithm is validated by simulative analysis. The second problem deals with the use of concepts borrowed from \emph{graph theory} to control a group differential wheel robots by exploiting the Laplacian solution of the consensus problem. Constraints on the swarm communication topology have been introduced by the use of a range and bearing platform developed at the Distributed Intelligent Systems and Algorithms Laboratory (DISAL), EPFL (Lausanne, CH) where part of author's work has been carried out. The control algorithm is validated by demonstration and simulation analysis and, later, is performed by a team of four robots engaged in a formation mission. To conclude, the capabilities of the algorithm based on the local solution of the consensus problem for differential wheel robots are demonstrated with an application scenario, where nine robots are engaged in a hunting task.

Abstract
Tipologia del documento
Tesi di dottorato
Autore
Falconi, Riccardo
Supervisore
Co-supervisore
Dottorato di ricerca
Scuola di dottorato
Scienze e ingegneria dell'informazione
Ciclo
21
Coordinatore
Settore disciplinare
Settore concorsuale
Parole chiave
Swarm Coordinated control Unknown environment Graph Theory Differential robot
URN:NBN
DOI
10.6092/unibo/amsdottorato/1657
Data di discussione
16 Aprile 2009
URI

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