Coalition game-based distributed coverage of unknown environments by robot swarms

Abstract

We consider the problem of distributed exploration or coverage of an unknown environment by a swarm of mobile mini-robots that have limited memory, computation and communication capabilities. We describe a novel mechanism of distributed coverage of an unknown environment by swarmed robots that can dynamically merge and split into structured teams or exchange team members to improve the efficiency of solving the coverage problem. Our mechanism combines the technique of swarm-based flocking with coalition games to enable robots dynamically select utility maximizing teams that move in formation.