Hector Garcia de Marina (University of Granada), “Practical challenges in formation control and mobile robot swarms”

Abstract:

Robot swarms have the potential to assist us with simpler logistics in persistent missions involving vast scenarios. Robot swarms also promise added resilience to complete their objectives despite unforeseen difficulties. However, current demonstrations of swarm technology in unstructured environments only count on single-digit individuals. That is farther from what one would expect from the huge scaling potential of a swarm. What are the bottlenecks then?

In this talk, I will present some practical challenges that mobile robot swarms face in fundamental tasks, e.g., the control of specific geometry parameters during a swarm deployment, also known as formation control. As an application of higher-level tasks leveraging formation control, we will see the coordination of robots while tracking paths and the source-seeking of scalar fields.

I will also focus on onboard imperfections and how they are responsible for non-designed emergent behavior. Nevertheless, I will show some hidden opportunities within the imperfections that could assist us with practical deployments.