Movie showing robots following trails around our building We demonstrate a team of real robots that cooperate to robustly transport resource between two locations in an unknown environment. The robots use a trail laying and following algorithm inspired by the trail following of ants and the waggle dance of honey bees. Rather than directly marking their environment, the robots announce landmarks in their odometric localization space. The system tolerates significant odometric drift before it breaks down. We Ye, Richard T. Vaughan, Gaurav S. Sukhatme, John Heidemann, Deborah Estrin and Maja J. Mataric.
Wireless communication is an enabling factor in multiple mobile robot systems.
There is significant interaction between robot controllers and communications subsystems. Two alternative controller designs are compared under established communication and radio propagation models. For each we measure the overall performance of the robot team including the cost of communication. The study illustrates how our evaluation tools can be used for designing controllers for robots operating in wireless communication environments. Richard T. Vaughan.