Adaptive Transmission Range for Decentralised Foraging Robots using Autonomic Pulse Communications

A robot swarm which is to be deployed without the need for regular human input is required to be autonomous, capable of the self-management needed for operation in distant, complex, or changing environments. Communication between the individual robots is an essential facet of the swarm’s ability to cooperate and adapt, and use of a fixed transmission range may result in issues with connectivity, inefficiency, or lead to constraints on robot movement. In this research, an Autonomic Pulse Communications system is developed for a simulated robot swarm, adaptively selecting a suitable transmission range based on local measurements of swarm density. The system is able to successfully share data around the swarm within a fixed time period, even with low density swarms and with a high robustness to communications loss. Further, the APC system is used in a simulated foraging task, performing as well as a previous decentralised autonomic system, but without the need for prior selection of a suitable transmission range.