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Self-Organizing Multirobot Exploration through Counter-Ant Algorithm

2008; Springer Science+Business Media; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-540-92157-8_12

1611-3349

Ilhem Kallel, Abdelhak Chatty, Mohamed Adel,

Optimization and Search Problems

This paper presents an evolving method for a self-organizing multirobot exploration of an unknown environment. In such problem, a big consideration is given to the coordination behavior of robots in order to achieve the common tasks in an optimal way. Ant algorithms are proved to be very useful in solving such distributed control problems. We present here a modified version of the known ant algorithm, called Counter-Ant Algorithm (CAA). Indeed, the robots'collective behavior is based on repulsion instead of attraction to pheromone, which is a chemical matter open to evaporation and representing the core of ants' cooperation. A series of experimentations with MINDSTORMS LEGO robots, and simulations under Madkit platform, in laboratory conditions similar to real ones, show the usefulness of our algorithm for self-organizing and cooperative exploration.