A positional information sharing method based on “Figure Of Confidence” for a herd of autonomous mobile robots

Abstract

This paper deals with positional information sharing in a multiple autonomous robot system, in which a numerous robot agents wander in a wide field to search for and to gather objects. To accomplish such a task effectively, it is essential for all the agents to share common information including locations of objects, comrade agents, and the place to deposit the objects. The authors have proposed a method called “COM-PASS” to realize this only using two functions of each agent - dead-reckoning and one to one bidirectional proximity communication. In this paper, authors introduce a new concept “Figure Of Confidence (FOC)” to the COMPASS. FOC is a self-estimated measure for accuracy of information in each agent. Using FOC can accelerate and improve accuracy of information sharing in COMPASS. Moreover, a new concept named “Object Horizon (OH)” is derived from FOC in this paper which indicates a possible area of existence of an object. OH provides an effective means to handle multiple objects without complexity. The validity of FOC and OH are confirmed through computer simulations and experiments.