Mobile Multi-Robot Control in Target Search and Retrieval

In this paper, the design of a controller is proposed for a multi-robot target search and retrieval system. Inspired by research in insect foraging and swarm robotics, we developed a transition mechanism for the multi-robot system. Environmental information and task performance obtained by the robot system are used to adjust individual robot’s parameters and guide environment exploration. The proposed control system is applicable in the solution of multi-target problem also where several robots may be needed to cooperate together to retrieve a large target. Simulations show that the task performance improves significantly with the proposed method by sharing information in parameter learning and environment exploration.