Institute of Engineering and Computational Mechanics

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University of Stuttgart

	Institute of Engineering and Computational Mechanics
	Swarm Robotics and Optimization

Project Description

This project focuses on the problem of cooperative motion of swarm mobile robots commonly searching for a target. Groups of robots, especially groups of mobile robots are made up of many simple individuals but give a super behavior in a colony and can be used in many important scenarios. For example, in this project a group of mobile robots are proposed to look for a common goal. Such an application more attention has been paid in recent years. However, controlling a swarm robotic system directly to do such desired behaviors is still a challenge which evokes many research interests.

In this project, we
- first of all build a swarm model based on their mechanical properties in the view of multibody dynamics,
- then design the corresponding control scheme and a simulation platform, including

motion analysis (e.g., consider the inertias, the feasible dynamics),
algorithm design (e.g., adjust the Particle Swarm Optimization which is inspired from some biological swarm colonies, such as birds, fishes, and ants),
collision avoidance,
optimal path planning, and
formation control
...

- finally, the whole model will be used on a group of Festo Robotinos to perform the desired search tasks. By doing so, we can verify the model and control scheme.
- Further on, some extensions are also researched like localization, communication, trajectory/target tracking etc.

Some of the interesting points from this project are, e.g., how the individual robots coordinate each other so as to exhibit global swarm behaviors when each of them only performs simple actions with limited communication ability or how system robustness against failure of individuals can be reached.