Coordinated Distributed Robot Swarm

23.03.2006

Abstract
Most of us are familiar with robots. They have been among us for many years, and maybe the best known usage of robots is industrial robots used in manufacturing lines. In the last years we have seen more use of robots in other settings such as in search- and rescue teams, mine detection and elimination etc. The area of application keeps growing.

With other application areas at hand, more functionality is expected from the robots, such as communication and coordination between them. What this project focuses on is problems like; is it possible to line up a swarm of robots such that they can do a coordinated task? For instance, can we line up and coordinate a robot swarm such that they form a snowplow that is able to clear an area of snow, say an airport?

In such scenario, the robots must have the ability to move coordinated and synchronized. This coordinated and synchronized behavior resembles very much the same behavior found in nature. Such as in a school of fishes or in a flock of birds.

If we have a swarm of robots scattered in an area we would like to line them up such that they are ready to perform a task in a coordinated and synchronized manner. Motivated by the swarm behavior found in nature, this thesis will build a prototype to test if such behavior can be achieved.