Autonomous Mobile Robots and Multi-Robot Systems

11Collective Motion with Direct and Indirect Communication

Eugene Kagan and Irad Ben‐Gal

This chapter considers two types of communication between the robots: direct communication based on certain communication protocols and indirect communication using environmental changes, which leads to stigmergy in multi‐robot systems. Dynamics of swarms with respect to these types of communication are illustrated by intermittent strategies motion of the robots and by the pheromone robotics phenomena.

11.1 Communication Between Mobile Robots in Groups

As indicated in Chapters 9 and 10, there are several types of communication between the mobile robots acting in groups, and according to the robots' abilities and mission, information transfer can be implemented in different manners and using different means. In particular, in Chapter 10, it was assumed that the robots either transfer information by the use of direct communication or by the use of changes of the environmental states (e.g., by decreasing the target's location probabilities as it is done in the destructive search considered in Sections 10.2.2 and 10.3.1). The second type of communication is known as indirect communication. The schemes of direct and indirect communications are shown in Figure 11.1.

Figure 11.1 Types of communication between the mobile agents: (a) direct communication using certain communication protocol; ...