Robot Swarm Navigation: Methods, Analysis, and Applications

Abstract

Swarm navigation is one of the possible collective behaviours a swarm robotic system can possess. Research in multiple robot navigation has gained more attention given their potential real-world applications, such as search and rescue, transportation, precision farming, and environmental monitoring. In this paper, we analyze the recent advances in the field of swarm navigation, focusing mainly on design and analysis methods that contribute to collective exploration, coordinated motion, and collective transport. Moreover, various experimental and real-world applications of swarm navigation, instead of works that involve simulations, are described. Several challenges that restrict the implementation of successful laboratory works of swarm systems to industrial applications are also identified and described. To tackle these challenges, some interesting future research directions are proposed and discussed.