Categorizing interference in real robot experiments

Abstract

Physical interference between robots happens when robots try to occupy the same region. In multi-robot experiments, interference between robots has been found to negatively impact performance. In addition, simulations do not always accurately predict real robot performance. So, we study the effects of unmodeled factors, such as interference, on the difference between real and simulated experiments. We believe that it is beneficial to understand the categorization of robot interference. Therefore, we examine different forms of interference in real robot experiments in order to set a basis for an interference model in simulation. We show that interference can be broken into categories which have discrete characteristics that affect robot performance differently in various environments.