Demonstration of cooperative obstacle crossing by sensorless swarm robots based on the mechanical interaction aided field control

Abstract

A swarm system is a branch of a collection of robotic systems composed of a lot of “simple” robots. In general, group cooperative behaviors require a considerable amount of information, numerous sensors and complicated networks, which makes the designing of their control system much difficult; therefore, a more natural and sensorless-based interaction is expected to aid the building of an easy-to-understand control scheme for elaborate swarm systems. This paper inspired by the collective motions of army ants focuses on a group behavior in which individuals can cooperate with each other using its own body. Army ants cooperate with one another to overcome large gaps, such as the gap between the tree and its leaf, wherein some ants form a pillar by connecting with one another, such that other ants can walk on it to cross the gap. This paper presents a sensorless swarm system in which the mechanical structure and the physical interaction of the system is only utilized. The collaborative obstacle-crossing task is considered, and the robotic swarm system, comprising the individual robot along with the mechanical interaction mechanism, is constructed. Through an obstacle climbing experiment and the passing of a gap, the validity of the mechanical interaction approach is examined.

Keywords

• dynamical mode switching
• robot mode
• field mode
• swarm system
• multi-agent cooperation
• mechanical interaction design
• sensorless
• environmental modification