Two formal gas models for multi-agent sweeping and obstacle avoidance

  • Authors:

  • Wesley Kerr;Diana Spears;William Spears;David Thayer

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science;Department of Computer Science;Department of Computer Science;Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY

  • Venue:
  • FAABS'04 Proceedings of the Third international conference on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

The task addressed here is a dynamic search through a bound-ed region, while avoiding multiple large obstacles, such as buildings. In the case of limited sensors and communication, maintaining spatial coverage – especially after passing the obstacles – is a challenging problem. Here, we investigate two physics-based approaches to solving this task with multiple simulated mobile robots, one based on artificial forces and the other based on the kinetic theory of gases. The desired behavior is achieved with both methods, and a comparison is made between them. Because both approaches are physics-based, formal assurances about the multi-robot behavior are straightforward, and are included in the paper.