Fast Redistribution of a Swarm of Heterogeneous Robots
Amanda Prorok, M. Ani Hsieh, Vijay Kumar

Citation
Amanda Prorok, M. Ani Hsieh, Vijay Kumar. "Fast Redistribution of a Swarm of Heterogeneous Robots". Proceedings of 9th EAI International Conference on Bio-inspired Information and Communications Technologies, 24, May, 2016.

Abstract
We present a method that distributes a swarm of heterogeneous robots among a set of tasks that require specialized capabilities in order to be completed. We model the system of heterogeneous robots as a community of species, where each species (robot type) is defined by the traits (capabilities) that it owns. Our method is based on a continuous abstraction of the swarm at a macroscopic level, as we model robots switching between tasks. We formulate an optimization problem that produces an optimal set of transition rates for each species, so that the desired trait distribution among the tasks is reached as quickly as possible. Our solution is based on an analytical gradient, and is computationally efficient, even for large choices of traits and species. Finally, we show that our method is capable of producing fast convergence times when compared to state-of-the-art methods.

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  • HTML
    Amanda Prorok, M. Ani Hsieh, Vijay Kumar. <a
    href="http://www.terraswarm.org/pubs/681.html"
    >Fast Redistribution of a Swarm of Heterogeneous
    Robots</a>, Proceedings of 9th EAI International
    Conference on Bio-inspired Information and Communications
    Technologies, 24, May, 2016.
  • Plain text
    Amanda Prorok, M. Ani Hsieh, Vijay Kumar. "Fast
    Redistribution of a Swarm of Heterogeneous Robots".
    Proceedings of 9th EAI International Conference on
    Bio-inspired Information and Communications Technologies,
    24, May, 2016.
  • BibTeX
    @inproceedings{ProrokHsiehKumar16_FastRedistributionOfSwarmOfHeterogeneousRobots,
        author = {Amanda Prorok and M. Ani Hsieh and Vijay Kumar},
        title = {Fast Redistribution of a Swarm of Heterogeneous
                  Robots},
        booktitle = {Proceedings of 9th EAI International Conference on
                  Bio-inspired Information and Communications
                  Technologies},
        day = {24},
        month = {May},
        year = {2016},
        abstract = {We present a method that distributes a swarm of
                  heterogeneous robots among a set of tasks that
                  require specialized capabilities in order to be
                  completed. We model the system of heterogeneous
                  robots as a community of species, where each
                  species (robot type) is defined by the traits
                  (capabilities) that it owns. Our method is based
                  on a continuous abstraction of the swarm at a
                  macroscopic level, as we model robots switching
                  between tasks. We formulate an optimization
                  problem that produces an optimal set of transition
                  rates for each species, so that the desired trait
                  distribution among the tasks is reached as quickly
                  as possible. Our solution is based on an
                  analytical gradient, and is computationally
                  efficient, even for large choices of traits and
                  species. Finally, we show that our method is
                  capable of producing fast convergence times when
                  compared to state-of-the-art methods.},
        URL = {http://terraswarm.org/pubs/681.html}
    }
    

Posted by Amanda Prorok, PhD on 15 Oct 2015.
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