Soriano Marcolino, Leandro and Chaimowicz, Luiz (2009) Traffic control for a swarm of robots:avoiding target congestion. In: Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2009). Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2009. IROS 2009. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on . IEEE, St. Louis, MO, pp. 1955-1961. ISBN 9781424438037
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Abstract
One of the main problems in the navigation of robotic swarms is when several robots try to reach the same target at the same time, causing congestion situations that may compromise performance. In this paper, we propose a distributed coordination algorithm to alleviate this type of congestion. Using local sensing and communication, and controlling their actions using a probabilistic finite state machine, robots are able to coordinate themselves to avoid these situations. Simulations and real experiments were executed to study the performance and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Results show that the algorithm allows the swarm to have a more efficient and smoother navigation and is suitable for large groups of robots.