Relative Motion of Robots as a Means for Signaling

摘要

Abstract—Gesturing is one of the most prevalent means of communication in the world around us. In this article, we describe a way to mimic this notion of gesturing to the signaling between mobile robots. One can decompose this mode of signaling into two parts. The first is the ability of the gesturing agent to generate a gesture as a motion. The other part is the ability of the receiving agent to perceive this gesturing motion and interpret it in accordance with a pre-determined gesture set. We consider the relative motion of two Dubins ’ vehicles in the plane and analyze the transmission of a signal from one robot to the other in the form of the relative motion between the two robots. We formulate the two tasks as a pair of nonlinear control problems. We require the transmitting robot to track the states of the receiving robot, and track one of its motion modes. The transmitting robot further needs to overlay the signal to be transmitted on the other motion mode for the receiver robot to be able to sense this signal using an onboard range sensor. We present a non-linear control law that enables this mode of signaling. We also present simulations and experimental prototyping of this idea, along with a discussion of potential applications of this concept. Index Terms—gesture, communication, non-linear control, robotics