PΦSS: An Open-Source Experimental Setup for Real-World Implementation of Swarm Robotic Systems in Long-Term Scenarios

Abstract

Swarm robotics is a relatively new research field that employs multiple robots (tens, hundreds or even thousands) that collaborate on complex tasks. There are several issues which limit the real-world application of swarm robotic scenarios, e.g. autonomy time, communication methods, and cost of commercialised robots. We present a platform, which aims to overcome the aforementioned limitations while using off-the-shelf components and freely-available software. The platform combines (i) a versatile open-hardware micro-robot capable of local and global communication, (ii) commercially-available wireless charging modules which provide virtually unlimited robot operation time, (iii) open-source marker-based robot tracking system for automated experiment evaluation, (iv) and a LCD display or a light projector to simulate environmental cues and pheromone communication. To demonstrate the versatility of the system, we present several scenarios, where our system was used.