Using Hardware Specialization and Hierarchy to Simplify Robotic Swarms

German Espinosa; Michael Rubenstein

ICRA 2018poster7 citations

Using Hardware Specialization and Hierarchy to Simplify Robotic Swarms

Abstract

Specialization has always been a tool for work distribution and simplification in nature and in distributed robotics. We present a novel approach to use hardware specialization hierarchically to enhance the capabilities of a swarm without increasing complexity, allowing a numerous group of robots to benefit from the extended features of a few to complete a task that was impossible for them before. We tested the concept under a simulated environment with a classical distributed robotics problem, shape formation, and validated the simulated results against a real experiment.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{icra2018_usinghardwarespe,
  title = {Using Hardware Specialization and Hierarchy to Simplify Robotic Swarms},
  author = {German Espinosa and Michael Rubenstein},
  booktitle = {ICRA 2018},
  year = {2018}
}