Closed-Loop Aerial Robot-Assisted Navigation of a Cohesive Ground-Based Robot Swarm

Abstract

We study how a swarm of ground-based robots, with no knowledge of the environment, can be guided to destination by a group of aerial robots. We show that if the ground-based robots maintain group cohesion, it is possible to create a closed-loop among aerial robots and ground-based robots that results in robust navigation even in presence of high sensory noise. We validate our results through extensive experiments in simulation and provide a proof-of-concept experiment with real robots.