Formation of Mobile Robots with Inaccurate Sensor Information

Abstract

This paper develops a control method for some generic formation tasks of multiple mobile robots with inaccurate sensor information. Inaccurate sensor information means that all the robots have only local sensors that cannot accurately measure absolute distances and directions of objects. That is, all the sensors have limitation on the range, and uncertainty in the values. Therefore, more robust and reliable control logic is proposed and implemented. The logic is developed considering generic situations and increasing the number of robots participating in the formation. Petri nets are used for modeling and design of the control logic, which can visualize the control models and make it easy to check the states of each robot. Physically homogeneous mobile robots are designed and built to evaluate the developed logic. Each robot is equipped with eighteen infrared sensors and a UHF transceiver module. The experiment results are analyzed quantitatively by using the data of the relative distances and angles between the robots. And the trajectories of the robots during the formation are also evaluated. The developed control approach is demonstrated with experiments to be successful and efficient for the formation of autonomous mobile robots.