Control of swarming robots

A method for controlling a multi-robot system comprising robots, wherein the robots are responsive to a time-varying density function indicative of an area of importance in a dynamically changing domain of interest, and wherein each robot includes a sensor and a processor, the method comprising:

• receiving, by the processor on each robot, from the sensor, data representative of the relative distance and angle measurements of the adjacent robot;
• determining, by the processor, a displacement vector relative to the adjacent robot based on the relative distance and angle measurements detected by the sensor;
• receiving data representative of the time-varying density function from a computing device having a touch screen;
• determining the time-varying density function based on a position and amount of a touch on the touch screen;
• calculating a velocity vector based on the time-varying density function and the displacement vector relative to the adjacent robot;
• and
• outputting for moving the robot to the area of importance in the dynamically changing domain of interest based on the velocity vector;
• wherein the robots are configured to spread into the dynamically changing domain of interest.

A multi-robot system comprising mobile robots;

• wherein the robots are responsive to a density function indicative of an area of importance in a dynamically changing domain of interest;
• wherein the robots together perform a sequence of formations in a decentralizing manner, each robot mimicking a trajectory as part of its performance, each robot mimicking the trajectory by switching among motion modes;
• and
• wherein each robot includes:
• a sensor for detecting relative distance and angle measurements of an adjacent robot;
• and
• a processor, coupled to the sensor, the processor configured to:
• receive, from the sensor, data representative of the relative distance and angle measurements of the adjacent robot;
• determine a displacement vector relative to the adjacent robot based on the relative distance and angle measurements detected by the sensor;
• receive data representative of the sequence of formations;
• determine a scaling factor for the robot's next mode based on the displacement vector;
• determine a rotation factor for the robot's next mode based on the displacement vector;
• determine a switch time for the robot's next mode based on the displacement vector;
• and
• output for executing the next mode based on the scaling factor, the rotation factor and the switch time.