Abstract

This paper presents a bio-inspired, distributed control algorithm called TENTACLES for a group of radio robots to move, self-configure and maintain communication between some critical entities (such as humans, command centers, or other systems) in an unknown environment. The basic idea is to direct robots' explorative movements to grow ¿tentacles¿ from entities and establish links when tentacles meet. This approach can self-heal failures of robots and improve communication coverage and quality over time. Experiments in simulations and real robots have shown positive results.

Date

October 10, 2009

Authors

Harris Chi Ho Chiu, Bo Ryu, Hua Zhu, Pedro Szekely, Rajiv Maheswaran, Craig Rogers, Aram Galstyan, Behnam Salemi, Mike Rubenstein, Wei-Min Shen

Conference

2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

Pages

1383-1388

Publisher

IEEE