Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Distributed Sorting in Complex Environments

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Swarm Intelligence (ANTS 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13491))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

We introduce an algorithm allowing a robot swarm to sort objects in complex environments. In this task, objects of different types are scattered around the environment and there is a specific goal area for each object type. The robots orbit the environment looking for objects and gather each class of objects into their designated area by physically pushing them around obstacles and towards their goals. The robots utilize a distributed collision avoidance algorithm for avoiding collisions with obstacles and among themselves based on the concept of buffered Voronoi cells. The robots decide which objects to target based on buffered Voronoi cell occupancy, thus preventing contention between robots. Global planning to determine the direction to move an object towards its goal along the shortest path is performed using goal maps generated from the distance transforms of these goal areas. The proposed algorithm is fully distributed and requires no central control or communication between robots. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm using an open-source web-based simulator and validate the real-world performance of the proposed algorithm in live experiments.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://github.com/m-abdulhak/SwarmJS.

References

  1. Abdullhak, M., Vardy, A.: Deadlock prediction and recovery for distributed collision avoidance with buffered voronoi cells. In: 2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 429–436 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS51168.2021.9636609

  2. Deneubourg, J.L., Goss, S., Franks, N., Sendova-Franks, A., Detrain, C., Chrétien, L.: The dynamics of collective sorting robot-like ants and ant-like robots. In: From Animals to Animats: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, pp. 356–365 (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Lu, Q., Fricke, G.M., Ericksen, J.C., Moses, M.E.: Swarm foraging review: closing the gap between proof and practice. Current Robot. Rep. 1(4), 1–11 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43154-020-00018-1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Melhuish, C., Holland, O., Hoddell, S.: Collective sorting and segregation in robots with minimal sensing. In: Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour, pp. 465–470 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Melhuish, C., Sendova-Franks, A.B., Scholes, S., Horsfield, I., Welsby, F.: Ant-inspired sorting by robots: the importance of initial clustering. J. Roy. Soc. Interface 3(7), 235–242 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Okabe, A., Boots, B., Sugihara, K., Chiu, S.: Spatial Tessellations: concepts and applications of Voronoi diagrams. Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics, Wiley (2009). https://books.google.ca/books?id=dT7YH3mjeeIC

  7. Olson, E.: AprilTag: a robust and flexible visual fiducial system. In: 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3400–3407 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2011.5979561

  8. Sack, J.R., Urrutia, J.: Handbook of Computational Geometry. Elsevier, Amsterdam (1999)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Sethian, J.A.: A fast marching level set method for monotonically advancing fronts. Proc. National Acad. Sci. 93(4), 1591–1595 (1996)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. Thrun, S., Burgard, W., Fox, D.: Probabilistic Robotics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2005)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  11. Vardy, A.: Accelerated patch sorting by a robotic swarm. In: 2012 Ninth Conference on Computer and Robot Vision, pp. 314–321. IEEE (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Vardy, A.: Orbital construction: swarms of simple robots building enclosures. In: 2018 IEEE 3rd International Workshops on Foundations and Applications of Self* Systems (FAS* W), pp. 147–153. IEEE (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Vardy, A., Vorobyev, G., Banzhaf, W.: Cache consensus: rapid object sorting by a robotic swarm. Swarm Intell. 8(1), 61–87 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11721-014-0091-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Wang, T., Zhang, H.: Multi-robot collective sorting with local sensing. In: IEEE Intelligent Automation Conference (IAC). Citeseer (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Winfield, A.F.: Foraging Robots, pp. 3682–3700. Springer, New York, New York, NY (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30440-3_217

  16. Zedadra, O., Jouandeau, N., Seridi, H., Fortino, G.: Multi-agent foraging: state-of-the-art and research challenges. Complex Adapt. Syst. Model. 5(1), 1–24 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Zhou, D., Wang, Z., Bandyopadhyay, S., Schwager, M.: Fast, on-line collision avoidance for dynamic vehicles using buffered voronoi cells. IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 2(2), 1047–1054 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2017.2656241

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada

    Mohammed Abdullhak

  2. Department of Computer Science, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada

    Andrew Vardy

Authors
  1. Mohammed Abdullhak
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andrew Vardy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrew Vardy .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Marco Dorigo

  2. University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany

    Heiko Hamann

  3. University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Manuel López-Ibáñez

  4. University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain

    José García-Nieto

  5. Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Andries Engelbrecht

  6. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA

    Carlo Pinciroli

  7. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Volker Strobel

  8. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Christian Camacho-Villalón

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Abdullhak, M., Vardy, A. (2022). Distributed Sorting in Complex Environments. In: Dorigo, M., et al. Swarm Intelligence. ANTS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13491. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20176-9_27

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20176-9_27

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-20175-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-20176-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation