Swarm Robots Foraging Path Formation Algorithm Based On Local Interaction

Swarms like ants don't need to know their global location,and where other ants are,in the nature.They are able to find the shortest route between food and the nest by working together in groups.Researchers begin to study foraging path formation of swarm robots,inspired by this phenomenon.Swarm robot has stronger robustness,adaptability and extensibility,compared with the traditional multi-robot system.A swarm robot system was designed and developed by combining infrared communication technology and modular design idea,aiming at the problems existing in the path formation algorithms of swarm robots.The effect of random walk strategy and release time interval on the efficiency of path formation algorithm was explored,through the combination of simulation and experiment.The main research contents are as follows:(1)According to the requirements of foraging path formation algorithm for swarm robots,the mechanism of infrared communication was fully studied firstly.Then,the infrared transmitting circuit and infrared communication protocol were improved.Finally,A swarm robot system was designed and developed by using modular design idea,had the ability to send short range omnidirectional information,receive information at close range and obstacle avoidance Omni directionally.(2)The influence of the volume on obstacle avoidance was not considered in the simulation experiment of the robot.So there were some errors in the simulation results compared with the actual robot operation,in the present study.Firstly,swarm robot model and site model were established by using WEBOTS.Then,the target search strategy in the foraging path formation algorithm of swarm robots was studied.Two random walk strategies,Brownian motion and Levy flight,were improved,so that they could be applied to target search of swarm robots in three dimensional space.Next,the effects of the two random walk strategies on the target search efficiency of swarm robots were compared.Brownian motion was more stable than Levy flight search,when multiple robots were found in the environment.Finally,the experimental verification was carried out by developed swarm robot system.(3)The effect of releasing time interval on path formation efficiency of swarm robot was studied.It was found that the phenomenon of robot congestion caused by the robot volume was ignored in the simulation,by comparing the difference between the experiment and the simulation of the real robot.Robot release time interval was too short.The path formation algorithm was less efficient.The results show that the robot release time interval is between 15s-20s,and the path forming algorithm is the most efficient.