3,445 research outputs found
Deaf, Dumb, and Chatting Robots, Enabling Distributed Computation and Fault-Tolerance Among Stigmergic Robot
We investigate ways for the exchange of information (explicit communication)
among deaf and dumb mobile robots scattered in the plane. We introduce the use
of movement-signals (analogously to flight signals and bees waggle) as a mean
to transfer messages, enabling the use of distributed algorithms among the
robots. We propose one-to-one deterministic movement protocols that implement
explicit communication. We first present protocols for synchronous robots. We
begin with a very simple coding protocol for two robots. Based on on this
protocol, we provide one-to-one communication for any system of n \geq 2 robots
equipped with observable IDs that agree on a common direction (sense of
direction). We then propose two solutions enabling one-to-one communication
among anonymous robots. Since the robots are devoid of observable IDs, both
protocols build recognition mechanisms using the (weak) capabilities offered to
the robots. The first protocol assumes that the robots agree on a common
direction and a common handedness (chirality), while the second protocol
assumes chirality only. Next, we show how the movements of robots can provide
implicit acknowledgments in asynchronous systems. We use this result to design
asynchronous one-to-one communication with two robots only. Finally, we combine
this solution with the schemes developed in synchronous settings to fit the
general case of asynchronous one-to-one communication among any number of
robots. Our protocols enable the use of distributing algorithms based on
message exchanges among swarms of Stigmergic robots. Furthermore, they provides
robots equipped with means of communication to overcome faults of their
communication device
Emergent velocity agreement in robot networks
In this paper we propose and prove correct a new self-stabilizing velocity
agreement (flocking) algorithm for oblivious and asynchronous robot networks.
Our algorithm allows a flock of uniform robots to follow a flock head emergent
during the computation whatever its direction in plane. Robots are
asynchronous, oblivious and do not share a common coordinate system. Our
solution includes three modules architectured as follows: creation of a common
coordinate system that also allows the emergence of a flock-head, setting up
the flock pattern and moving the flock. The novelty of our approach steams in
identifying the necessary conditions on the flock pattern placement and the
velocity of the flock-head (rotation, translation or speed) that allow the
flock to both follow the exact same head and to preserve the flock pattern.
Additionally, our system is self-healing and self-stabilizing. In the event of
the head leave (the leading robot disappears or is damaged and cannot be
recognized by the other robots) the flock agrees on another head and follows
the trajectory of the new head. Also, robots are oblivious (they do not recall
the result of their previous computations) and we make no assumption on their
initial position. The step complexity of our solution is O(n)
Optimal Probabilistic Ring Exploration by Asynchronous Oblivious Robots
We consider a team of identical, oblivious, asynchronous mobile robots
that are able to sense (\emph{i.e.}, view) their environment, yet are unable to
communicate, and evolve on a constrained path. Previous results in this weak
scenario show that initial symmetry yields high lower bounds when problems are
to be solved by \emph{deterministic} robots. In this paper, we initiate
research on probabilistic bounds and solutions in this context, and focus on
the \emph{exploration} problem of anonymous unoriented rings of any size. It is
known that robots are necessary and sufficient to solve the
problem with deterministic robots, provided that and are coprime.
By contrast, we show that \emph{four} identical probabilistic robots are
necessary and sufficient to solve the same problem, also removing the coprime
constraint. Our positive results are constructive
Positional Encoding by Robots with Non-Rigid Movements
Consider a set of autonomous computational entities, called \emph{robots},
operating inside a polygonal enclosure (possibly with holes), that have to
perform some collaborative tasks. The boundary of the polygon obstructs both
visibility and mobility of a robot. Since the polygon is initially unknown to
the robots, the natural approach is to first explore and construct a map of the
polygon. For this, the robots need an unlimited amount of persistent memory to
store the snapshots taken from different points inside the polygon. However, it
has been shown by Di Luna et al. [DISC 2017] that map construction can be done
even by oblivious robots by employing a positional encoding strategy where a
robot carefully positions itself inside the polygon to encode information in
the binary representation of its distance from the closest polygon vertex. Of
course, to execute this strategy, it is crucial for the robots to make accurate
movements. In this paper, we address the question whether this technique can be
implemented even when the movements of the robots are unpredictable in the
sense that the robot can be stopped by the adversary during its movement before
reaching its destination. However, there exists a constant ,
unknown to the robot, such that the robot can always reach its destination if
it has to move by no more than amount. This model is known in
literature as \emph{non-rigid} movement. We give a partial answer to the
question in the affirmative by presenting a map construction algorithm for
robots with non-rigid movement, but having bits of persistent memory and
ability to make circular moves
Parameterized Verification of Algorithms for Oblivious Robots on a Ring
We study verification problems for autonomous swarms of mobile robots that
self-organize and cooperate to solve global objectives. In particular, we focus
in this paper on the model proposed by Suzuki and Yamashita of anonymous robots
evolving in a discrete space with a finite number of locations (here, a ring).
A large number of algorithms have been proposed working for rings whose size is
not a priori fixed and can be hence considered as a parameter. Handmade
correctness proofs of these algorithms have been shown to be error-prone, and
recent attention had been given to the application of formal methods to
automatically prove those. Our work is the first to study the verification
problem of such algorithms in the parameter-ized case. We show that safety and
reachability problems are undecidable for robots evolving asynchronously. On
the positive side, we show that safety properties are decidable in the
synchronous case, as well as in the asynchronous case for a particular class of
algorithms. Several properties on the protocol can be decided as well. Decision
procedures rely on an encoding in Presburger arithmetics formulae that can be
verified by an SMT-solver. Feasibility of our approach is demonstrated by the
encoding of several case studies
Getting Close Without Touching: Near-Gathering for Autonomous Mobile Robots
In this paper we study the Near-Gathering problem for a finite set of
dimensionless, deterministic, asynchronous, anonymous, oblivious and autonomous
mobile robots with limited visibility moving in the Euclidean plane in
Look-Compute-Move (LCM) cycles. In this problem, the robots have to get close
enough to each other, so that every robot can see all the others, without
touching (i.e., colliding with) any other robot. The importance of solving the
Near-Gathering problem is that it makes it possible to overcome the restriction
of having robots with limited visibility. Hence it allows to exploit all the
studies (the majority, actually) done on this topic in the unlimited visibility
setting. Indeed, after the robots get close enough to each other, they are able
to see all the robots in the system, a scenario that is similar to the one
where the robots have unlimited visibility.
We present the first (deterministic) algorithm for the Near-Gathering
problem, to the best of our knowledge, which allows a set of autonomous mobile
robots to nearly gather within finite time without ever colliding. Our
algorithm assumes some reasonable conditions on the input configuration (the
Near-Gathering problem is easily seen to be unsolvable in general). Further,
all the robots are assumed to have a compass (hence they agree on the "North"
direction), but they do not necessarily have the same handedness (hence they
may disagree on the clockwise direction).
We also show how the robots can detect termination, i.e., detect when the
Near-Gathering problem has been solved. This is crucial when the robots have to
perform a generic task after having nearly gathered. We show that termination
detection can be obtained even if the total number of robots is unknown to the
robots themselves (i.e., it is not a parameter of the algorithm), and robots
have no way to explicitly communicate.Comment: 25 pages, 8 fiugre
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