Generating formations with a template based multi-robot system

Abstract

A template based technique that generates two dimensional formations in leader-follower type multi-robot systems is presented in this paper. How this technique: i) selects a leader robot that is placed at the front of formations and ii) enables six randomly positioned identical non-holonomic robots to compose triangular, circular, linear and rectangular formations is also demonstrated. The template based technique has been compared with a state-of-the-art potential field type formation generation technique and simulation results show that the template based technique can form circular formations 77.35 % faster and with 51.43 % shorter travel distance. The presented work is an important contribution to multi-robot control theory as history shows that the success of groups often depend on the ability to efficiently generate appropriate formations. 1