Cluster Synchronization of Predator Prey Robots

Abstract

Bio-inspired robotics is an emerging field of cognitive intelligence which is based on the fundamental assumption that the biological systems are capable of self organization, better capable to adapt themselves to their changing environment for survival. Based on these features, behaviours observed in the biological world can be transferred to robots which may mimic the underlying behavior of their natural counterparts for efficient collaboration and coordination. The focus of this study is the application of identical unidirectionally coupled chaotic food webs in a robot foraging task. The phase coupled system is used to drive multi-robots arranged in a star network topology. The efficiency of the synchronization of the high dimensional system which is used to create a biologically inspired robot is examined using symbolic dynamics. In this work, the bio-inspired two wheeled mobile robots arranged in a topological network are assigned a set of targets or fixed obstacles distributed arbitrarily in the same workspace. The coverage is completed when a specified portion of the workspace is covered by the multi-robot system. Simulation results for coverage demonstrate the merit of the proposed system in the application of cooperative task assignment and obstacle avoidance.