Improved information sharing method for multiple autonomous mobilerobot systems using one to one bidirectional proximitycommunication

摘要

An essential task for a multiple autonomous mobile robot system isto search for and to gather objects. To accomplish such a taskeffectively, it is essential that all the agents share commoninformation on locations of objects, comrade agents and the place todeposit the objects. The authors have proposed a method called“COMPASS” to realize this only using two functions of eachagent-to estimate the location of the objects by dead reckoning and toexchange the information with each other by one to one bidirectionalproximity communication. In the paper, a new concept “figure ofconfidence (FOC)” is introduced to the COMPASS for higherperformance and additional capability. The FOC is a self-estimatedmeasure for accuracy of information in each agent. Using the FOC, agentscan accelerate information sharing and handle multiple objects withoutsignificantly increasing complexity of the algorithm. The validity ofFOC is confirmed through computer simulations