TY - GEN
T1 - Robot swarm for efficient area coverage inspired by ant foraging - The case of adaptive switching between brownian motion and levy flight
AU - Deshpande, Aditya
AU - Kumar, Manish
AU - Ramakrishnan, Subramanian
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - Design of robot swarms inspired by self-organization in social insect groups is currently an active research area with a diverse portfolio of potential applications. In this work, the authors propose a control law for eficient area coverage by a robot swarm in a 2D spatial domain, inspired by the unique dynamical characteristics of ant foraging. The novel idea pursued in the effort is that dynamic, adaptive switching between Brownian motion and Levy flight in the stochastic component of the search increases the eficiency of the search. Influence of different pheromone (the virtual chemotactic agent that drives the foraging) threshold values for switching between Levy flights and Brownian motion is studied using two performance metrics - area coverage and visit entropy. The results highlight the advantages of the switching strategy for the control framework, particularly in cases when the object of the search is scarce in quantity or getting depleted in real-time.
AB - Design of robot swarms inspired by self-organization in social insect groups is currently an active research area with a diverse portfolio of potential applications. In this work, the authors propose a control law for eficient area coverage by a robot swarm in a 2D spatial domain, inspired by the unique dynamical characteristics of ant foraging. The novel idea pursued in the effort is that dynamic, adaptive switching between Brownian motion and Levy flight in the stochastic component of the search increases the eficiency of the search. Influence of different pheromone (the virtual chemotactic agent that drives the foraging) threshold values for switching between Levy flights and Brownian motion is studied using two performance metrics - area coverage and visit entropy. The results highlight the advantages of the switching strategy for the control framework, particularly in cases when the object of the search is scarce in quantity or getting depleted in real-time.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85036640879&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85036640879&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1115/DSCC2017-5229
DO - 10.1115/DSCC2017-5229
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85036640879
T3 - ASME 2017 Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, DSCC 2017
BT - Mechatronics; Estimation and Identification; Uncertain Systems and Robustness; Path Planning and Motion Control; Tracking Control Systems; Multi-Agent and Networked Systems; Manufacturing; Intelligent Transportation and Vehicles; Sensors and Actuators; Diagnostics and Detection; Unmanned, Ground and Surface Robotics; Motion and Vibration Control Applications
PB - American Society of Mechanical Engineers
T2 - ASME 2017 Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, DSCC 2017
Y2 - 11 October 2017 through 13 October 2017
ER -