Distributed Anonymous Mobile Robots: Formation of Geometric Patterns
SIAM Journal on Computing
ICTCS '01 Proceedings of the 7th Italian Conference on Theoretical Computer Science
Deterministic Rendezvous in Graphs
Algorithmica
Theoretical Computer Science
Local spreading algorithms for autonomous robot systems
Theoretical Computer Science
Self-deployment of mobile sensors on a ring
Theoretical Computer Science
Gathering Multiple Robotic Agents with Crude Distance Sensing Capabilities
ANTS '08 Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence
Circle formation of weak mobile robots
ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS)
Anonymous graph exploration without collision by mobile robots
Information Processing Letters
Taking Advantage of Symmetries: Gathering of Asynchronous Oblivious Robots on a Ring
OPODIS '08 Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems
Computing without communicating: ring exploration by asynchronous oblivious robots
OPODIS'07 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Principles of distributed systems
Optimal memory rendezvous of anonymous mobile agents in a unidirectional ring
SOFSEM'06 Proceedings of the 32nd conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science
Asynchronous deterministic rendezvous in graphs
MFCS'05 Proceedings of the 30th international conference on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science
Polynomial deterministic rendezvous in arbitrary graphs
ISAAC'04 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Algorithms and Computation
Gathering asynchronous oblivious mobile robots in a ring
ISAAC'06 Proceedings of the 17th international conference on Algorithms and Computation
On the self-stabilization of mobile oblivious robots in uniform rings
SSS'12 Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems
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We consider two variants of the task of spreading a swarm of agents uniformly on a ring graph. Ant-like oblivious agents having limited capabilities are considered. The agents are assumed to have little memory, they all execute the same algorithm and no direct communication is allowed between them. Furthermore, the agents do not possess any global information. In particular, the size of the ring (n) and the number of agents in the swarm (k) are unknown to them. The agents are assumed to operate on an unweighted ring graph. Every agent can measure the distance to his two neighbors on the ring, up to a limited range of V edges. The first task considered, is dynamical (i.e. in motion) uniform deployment on the ring. We show that if either the ring is unoriented, or the visibility range is less than @?n/k@?, this is an impossible mission for the agents. Then, for an oriented ring and V=@?n/k@?, we propose an algorithm which achieves the deployment task in optimal time. The second task discussed, called quiescent spread, requires the agents to spread uniformly over the ring and stop moving. We prove that under our model, in which every agent can measure the distance only to his two neighbors, this task is impossible. Subsequently, we propose an algorithm which achieves quiescent but only almost uniform spread. The algorithms we present are scalable and robust. In case the environment (the size of the ring) or the number of agents changes during the run, the swarm adapts and re-deploys without requiring any outside interference.