Adaptive formation-switching of a multi-robot system in an unknown occluded environment using BAT algorithm

摘要

This decade has witnessed a paradigm shift in human-labor based rescue-surveillance operations. Research propositions have explored the possibility of replacing manual intervention for the management of catastrophic situations by a team of robots. However, to implement the concept into practice, the robotics community has faced several challenges. The multi-robotic system has to be duly coordinated efficaciously by controllers to automate the operations thereby saving the lives of the rescuers. Subsequently, the controller/s should be able to ensemble the robots forming a particular shape depending on the varying environmental conditions. Moreover, it would allow the group to switch its current formation so that the system could maneuver towards the target while avoiding static/dynamic obstacles. To address these challenges, we have proposed a hierarchical control strategy so that the robots could maintain a strong inter-agent cohesiveness and simultaneously could switch their formation in the face of the changing situations and could pursue the goal of arriving towards the target. The formation control law has been designed based on the echolocation principle of the bio-inspired bat algorithm. The algorithm, corroborated by the simulation results and the real-time experiments is exceptionally useful for forming the desired pattern, changing the formation adaptively whenever obstructions show up in their trajectories.