Short Title: Int. J. Mech. Eng. Robot. Res.
Frequency: Bimonthly
Professor of School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment, Western Sydney University, Australia. His research interests cover Industry 4.0, Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Engineering Materials and Structures (Metals and Composites), Multi-scale Modelling of Materials and Structures, Metal Forming and Metal Surface Treatment.
2024-12-18
2024-10-25
Abstract—This paper investigates the functionality and quality of the implementation of a search- and target-surrounding swarm robotic algorithm using physical swarm robots named Kilobots. The implementation was developed and tested in the simulator V-REP, then transferred onto the actually running Kilobots: Ten Kilobots were used for the experiment, where one Kilobot acts as the target and nine Kilobots act as the searchers. The algorithm allows the searchers to swarm out to find the target while avoiding collisions with other searchers, to orbit around other searchers, which are closer to the target, and finally to surround the target once it is found. The results of the implementation using the physical Kilobots are compared with the results of two adjusted computer simulations. Differences between the simulations and the real robot implementation are investigated: Discrepancies regarding the locomotion and the communication capabilities are identified and discussed.