2020/03/12 by Victoria Edwards, Philip deZonia, M. Ani Hsieh +4 · 17 citations
Computer Science · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Collision #Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems #Mobile robot #Parameter space #Reinforcement Learning in Robotics #Robot #Robustness (evolution) #Rotation (mathematics) #Swarm behaviour #Teleoperation and Haptic Systems #Wireless #nlin.AO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.5142849
published in Chaos An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 30(7), 073126 (American Institute of Physics) · 13 pages, 12 figures
arxiv created 2020/03/12 · openalex created_date 2020/03/23 · openalex publication_date 2020/07/01 · arxiv updated 2020/08/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Swarms of coupled mobile agents subject to inter-agent wireless communication delays are known to exhibit multiple dynamic patterns in space that depend on the strength of the interactions and the magnitude of the communication delays. We experimentally demonstrate communication delay-induced bifurcations in the spatiotemporal patterns of robot swarms using two distinct hardware platforms in a mixed reality framework. Additionally, we make steps toward experimentally validating theoretically predicted parameter regions where transitions between swarm patterns occur. We show that multiple rotation patterns persist even when collision avoidance strategies are incorporated, and we show the existence of multi-stable, co-existing rotational patterns not predicted by usual mean field dynamics. Our experiments are the first significant steps toward validating existing theory and the existence and robustness of the delay-induced patterns in real robotic swarms.