Composable continuous-space programs for robotic swarms

Programmability is an increasingly important barrier to the deployment of multi-robot systems, as no prior approach allows routine composition and reuse of general aggregate behaviors. The Proto spatial computing language, however, already provides this sort of aggregate behavior ing for non-mobile systems using an abstraction of the network as a continuous-space-filling device. We his abstraction to mobile systems and show that Proto can be applied to multi-robot systems with an actuator that turns a vector field into device motion. Proto programs on fields of values over an abstract device called the amorphous medium and can be joined together using functional composition. These programs are then automatically transformed for execution by individual devices, producing an approximation of the specified continuousspace behavior. We are thus able to build up a library of simple swarm behaviors, and to compose them together into highly succinct programs that predictably produce the desir...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: NCA
• Authors: Jonathan Bachrach, Jacob Beal, James McLurkin
• Keywords: Aggregate Behavior, Behaviors, Computer Networks, Multi-robot Systems, NCA 2010