1 research outputs found
Exploration via Structured Triangulation by a Multi-Robot System with Bearing-Only Low-Resolution Sensors
This paper presents a distributed approach for exploring and triangulating an
unknown region using a multi- robot system. The objective is to produce a
covering of an unknown workspace by a fixed number of robots such that the
covered region is maximized, solving the Maximum Area Triangulation Problem
(MATP). The resulting triangulation is a physical data structure that is a
compact representation of the workspace; it contains distributed knowledge of
each triangle, adjacent triangles, and the dual graph of the workspace.
Algorithms can store information in this physical data structure, such as a
routing table for robot navigation Our algorithm builds a triangulation in a
closed environment, starting from a single location. It provides coverage with
a breadth-first search pattern and completeness guarantees. We show the
computational and communication requirements to build and maintain the
triangulation and its dual graph are small. Finally, we present a physical
navigation algorithm that uses the dual graph, and show that the resulting path
lengths are within a constant factor of the shortest-path Euclidean distance.
We validate our theoretical results with experiments on triangulating a region
with a system of low-cost robots. Analysis of the resulting quality of the
triangulation shows that most of the triangles are of high quality, and cover a
large area. Implementation of the triangulation, dual graph, and navigation all
use communication messages of fixed size, and are a practical solution for
large populations of low-cost robots.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures. To appear in ICRA 201