3,017 research outputs found
Human Swarm Interaction: An Experimental Study of Two Types of Interaction with Foraging Swarms
In this paper we present the first study of human-swarm interaction comparing two fundamental types of interaction, coined intermittent and environmental. These types are exemplified by two control methods, selection and beacon control, made available to a human operator to control a foraging swarm of robots. Selection and beacon control differ with respect to their temporal and spatial influence on the swarm and enable an operator to generate different strategies from the basic behaviors of the swarm. Selection control requires an active selection of groups of robots while beacon control exerts an influence on nearby robots within a set range. Both control methods are implemented in a testbed in which operators solve an information foraging problem by utilizing a set of swarm behaviors. The robotic swarm has only local communication and sensing capabilities. The number of robots in the swarm range from 50 to 200. Operator performance for each control method is compared in a series of missions in different environments with no obstacles up to cluttered and structured obstacles. In addition, performance is compared to simple and advanced autonomous swarms. Thirty-two participants were recruited for participation in the study. Autonomous swarm algorithms were tested in repeated simulations. Our results showed that selection control scales better to larger swarms and generally outperforms beacon control. Operators utilized different swarm behaviors with different frequency across control methods, suggesting an adaptation to different strategies induced by choice of control method. Simple autonomous swarms outperformed human operators in open environments, but operators adapted better to complex environments with obstacles. Human controlled swarms fell short of task-specific benchmarks under all conditions. Our results reinforce the importance of understanding and choosing appropriate types of human-swarm interaction when designing swarm systems, in addition to choosing appropriate swarm behaviors
Decentralized Collision-Free Control of Multiple Robots in 2D and 3D Spaces
Decentralized control of robots has attracted huge research interests.
However, some of the research used unrealistic assumptions without collision
avoidance. This report focuses on the collision-free control for multiple
robots in both complete coverage and search tasks in 2D and 3D areas which are
arbitrary unknown. All algorithms are decentralized as robots have limited
abilities and they are mathematically proved.
The report starts with the grid selection in the two tasks. Grid patterns
simplify the representation of the area and robots only need to move straightly
between neighbor vertices. For the 100% complete 2D coverage, the equilateral
triangular grid is proposed. For the complete coverage ignoring the boundary
effect, the grid with the fewest vertices is calculated in every situation for
both 2D and 3D areas.
The second part is for the complete coverage in 2D and 3D areas. A
decentralized collision-free algorithm with the above selected grid is
presented driving robots to sections which are furthest from the reference
point. The area can be static or expanding, and the algorithm is simulated in
MATLAB.
Thirdly, three grid-based decentralized random algorithms with collision
avoidance are provided to search targets in 2D or 3D areas. The number of
targets can be known or unknown. In the first algorithm, robots choose vacant
neighbors randomly with priorities on unvisited ones while the second one adds
the repulsive force to disperse robots if they are close. In the third
algorithm, if surrounded by visited vertices, the robot will use the
breadth-first search algorithm to go to one of the nearest unvisited vertices
via the grid. The second search algorithm is verified on Pioneer 3-DX robots.
The general way to generate the formula to estimate the search time is
demonstrated. Algorithms are compared with five other algorithms in MATLAB to
show their effectiveness
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