Designing a Robotic Platform for Investigating Swarm Robotics

This paper documents the design and subsequent construction of a low-cost, flexible robotic platform for swarm robotics research, and the selection of appropriate swarm algorithms for the implementation of a swarm focused predominantly on target location. The design described herein is intended to allow for the construction of robots large enough to meaningfully interact with their environment while maintaining a low per-robot cost of materials and a low assembly time. The design process is separated into three stages: mechanical design, electrical design, and software design. All major design components are described in detail under the appropriate design section. The BOM for a single robot is also included, along with relevant testing information

Performance evaluation of Max-Min Ant System Algorithm for Robot Path Planning in Grid Environment

Path planning is an essential task for the robot to navigate and control its motion in any environment. The optimal path needs to be rerouted each time a new obstacle appears in front of the robot in a dynamic environment. This research focuses on the MAX-MIN Ant System Algorithm(MMAS) which is an Ant Colony Algorithm derived from Ant System(AS) and is different from it in terms of the pheromone deposition. The effectiveness of this algorithm to obtain a near optimal solution is illustrated by the means of experimental study. Using a greedier search than the Ant System algorithm is one of the specific characteristics of the MMAS, which will be studied in the research. The robot environment model is represented by a grid which has obstacles whose positions change in each map that is used. Local search routines and diversification mechanisms introduced by the previous researchers are used to enhance the performance of the MMAS algorithm. To implement the MMAS algorithm used in our research, the experiments are performed in Matlab development environment where a simulation program is designed, and the algorithm is implemented in grid maps of sizes starting from the smallest grid 10x10 to the grid of size 400x400. We implemented and analyzed the performance of the algorithm in larger grid environments to understand how it would perform when the search space is too huge; which would enable researchers to use the MMAS algorithm in experiments involving real-life environments. In our experiments, a new obstacle is added after every iteration of the algorithm which makes it challenging for the robots to find the near-optimal path. The performance evaluation of the MMAS algorithm is studied and is also compared to that of the ACO algorithm when implemented in differently sized grid maps

Comparative Research on Robot Path Planning Based on GA-ACA and ACA-GA

The path planning for mobile robots is one of the core contents in the field of robotics research with complex, restrictive and nonlinear characteristics. It consists of automatically determining a path from an initial position of the robot to its final position. Due to classic approaches have several drawbacks, evolutionary methods such as Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm (ACA) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) are employed to solve the path planning efficiently

Path tracking control of differential drive mobile robot based on chaotic-billiards optimization algorithm

Mobile robots are typically depending only on robot kinematics control. However, when high-speed motions and highly loaded transfer are considered, it is necessary to analyze dynamics of the robot to limit tracking error. The goal of this paper is to present a new algorithm, chaotic-billiards optimizer (C-BO) to optimize internal controller parameters of a differential-drive mobile robot (DDMR)-based dynamic model. The C-BO algorithm is notable for its ease of implementation, minimal number of design parameters, high convergence speed, and low computing burden. In addition, a comparison between the performance of C-BO and ant colony optimization (ACO) to determine the optimum controller coefficient that provides superior performance and convergence of the path tracking. The ISE criterion is selected as a fitness function in a simulation-based optimization strategy. For the point of accuracy, the velocity-based dynamic compensation controller was successfully integrated with the motion controller proposed in this study for the robot's kinematics. Control structure of the model was tested using MATLAB/Simulink. The results demonstrate that the suggested C-BO, with steady state error performance of 0.6 percent compared to ACO's 0.8 percent, is the optimum alternative for parameter optimizing the controller for precise path tracking. Also, it offers advantages of quick response, high tracking precision, and outstanding anti-interference capability

HYBRID FUZZY CONTROL AND ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION BASED PATH PLANNING FOR WHEEL MOBILE ROBOT NAVIGATION

Wheeled Mobile Robot (WMR) is extremely important for active target tracking control and reactive obstacle avoidance in an unstructured environment. A WMR needs the best control performance an automatic path planning to maintain a very high level of accuracy. Therefore, the development of control strategies and path planning is very significant. Hence, research was carried out to investigate the control and path planning issues of WMR in dynamic environment. Several controllers such as conventional controller Proportional (P), Integral (I), Derivative (D) and Fuzzy Logic controller were investigated. A Hybrid Controller for differential WMR was proposed. Various aspects of the research on WMR such as kinematics model, conventional controller, fuzzy controller and hybrid controller were discussed. Overall it was found that on average the Hybrid Controller gives the best performance with 5.5s, 5.4s and 11s for target of 10x 10y, 30x10y and 60x20y respectively

Multi-Goal Feasible Path Planning Using Ant Colony Optimization

A new algorithm for solving multi-goal planning problems in the presence of obstacles is introduced. We extend ant colony optimization (ACO) from its well-known application, the traveling salesman problem (TSP), to that of multi-goal feasible path planning for inspection and surveillance applications. Specifically, the ant colony framework is combined with a sampling-based point-to-point planning algorithm; this is compared with two successful sampling-based multi-goal planning algorithms in an obstacle-filled two-dimensional environment. Total mission time, a function of computational cost and the duration of the planned mission, is used as a basis for comparison. In our application of interest, autonomous underwater inspections, the ACO algorithm is found to be the best-equipped for planning in minimum mission time, offering an interior point in the tradeoff between computational complexity and optimality.United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-06-10043

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Exploratory Path Planning for Mobile Robots in Dynamic Environments with Ant Colony Optimization

In the path planning task for autonomous mobile robots, robots should be able to plan their trajectory to leave the start position and reach the goal, safely. There are several path planning approaches for mobile robots in the literature. Ant Colony Optimization algorithms have been investigated for this problem, giving promising results. In this paper, we propose the Max-Min Ant System for Dynamic Path Planning algorithm for the exploratory path planning task for autonomous mobile robots based on topological maps. A topological map is an environment representation whose focus is the main reference points of the environment and their connections. Based on this representation, the path can be composed by a sequence of state/actions pairs, which facilitates the navigability of the path, with no need to have the information of the complete map. The proposed algorithm was evaluated in static and dynamic envi- ronments, showing promising results in both of them. Experiments in dynamic environments show the adaptability of our proposal