Soriano Marcolino, Leandro and Chaimowicz, Luiz (2009) Traffic control for a swarm of robots : avoiding group conflicts. 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. 1949-1954. ISBN 9781424438307
Abstract
A very common problem in the navigation of robotic swarms is when groups of robots move into opposite directions, causing congestion situations that may compromise performance. In this paper, we propose a distributed coordination algorithm to alleviate this type of congestion. By working collaboratively, and warning their teammates about a congestion risk, robots are able to coordinate themselves to avoid these situations. We executed simulations and real experiments to study the performance and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Results show that the algorithm allows the swarm to navigate in a smoother and more efficient fashion, and is suitable for large groups of robots.