The dynamic, physical embodiment of this system will adapt to both the harsh reality of robot failure and the computational demands of complex tasks. Complicated planning or perceptual tasks are handled through underlying behavioral channels using broadcast signals that drive detached robots to share their resources and attach themselves to the emergent structure. Robotic agents will attach or detach in a manner that most benefits the group goals. Thus, sharing resources only when absolutely required maximizes the efficiency of group action. We are proposing a hierarchical system where groups of independent robots form networked clusters called squads.
Squads have the innate ability to organize into an entity called a command unit.
A colony is an abstraction defined as a single command unit operating in conjunction with an arbitrary number of squads and independent robots to perform a specific task. Colonies have highly desirable properties that make them superior to traditional distributed and proxy paradigms for distributed robotics. We will demonstrate these capabilities in the scenario of distributed mapping. This task that will be accomplished is the construction of an integrated 3-D map of a target scene. The unique feature that we will demonstrate and, ultimately, the metric of our success is the ability to doggedly pursue this mapping task when faced with individual robot failures.