Connectivity of swarm robot networks for communication range and the number of robots based on percolation theory

Abstract

One approach in swarm robotics (SR) is homogeneous system which is embedded with sensing, computing, mobile and communication components. This is identified with mobile wireless sensor networks (WSNs). For some SR tasks, robots need to collect information from the environment and share their data with each other. Due to the multi-hop transmission of WSNs, robots in such networks can communicate with each other via intermediate relay robots. Therefore, it is important to take connectivity of the network into account. This study investigates communication range and the number of robots required for a SR network to achieve connectivity based on percolation theory.