Abstract
In this paper, we introduce a distributed algorithm for the formation of a grid pattern by multiple homogeneous, autonomous, disc-shaped robots (also referred to as fat robots). The robots organize themselves to form a grid (not given in prior) which is required for covering, safeguarding or supervising a geographical region by the robots. The operation of the robots is based on execution cycles of the phases ‘wait–look–compute–move’. In the ‘wait’ phase, the robots are inactive or dormant; in the ‘look’ phase, they observe within their visibility range; in the ‘compute’ phase, the robots decide a destination to move to; and finally, they advance to their decided target point in the ‘move’ phase. Eventually, the robots distribute themselves to create a grid. They are oblivious, i.e. the robots cannot recollect any past action or looked data from a previous cycle, and there is no interaction among these robots by message passing. They are anonymous, identical and have unlimited visibility. Though the robots are see-through or transparent, they are physical obstruction for the others. The algorithm proposed here also ensures the prevention of deadlock and collision among the robots.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ackerman E, Robots that can efficiently disinfect hospitals using uv light could slow coronavirus infections. https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/medical-robots/autonomous-robots-are-helping-kill-coronavirus-in-hospitals. Accessed: 2020-08-09
Barrameda EM, Das S, Santoro N (2008) Deployment of asynchronous robotic sensors in unknown orthogonal environments. In: Fekete SP (ed) Algorithmic aspects of wireless sensor networks. Berlin, Heidelberg. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pages 125–140
Barriere L, Flocchini P, Mesa-Barrameda E, Santoro N (2009) Uniform scattering of autonomous mobile robots in a grid. In 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Parallel Distributed Processing, pages 1–8, May 2009
Bose K, Adhikary R, Kundu MK, Sau B (2020) Arbitrary pattern formation on infinite grid by asynchronous oblivious robots. Theoret Comput Sci 815:213–227
Cao YU, Fukunaga AS, Kahng AB, Meng F (1995) Cooperative mobile robotics: antecedents and directions. In: Proceedings 1995 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems. Human robot interaction and cooperative robots, volume 1, pages 226–234
Chaudhuri SG, Mukhopadhyaya K (2016) Distributed algorithms for swarm robots. Control, and modeling of swarm robotics. In: Handbook of research on design
Cohen R, Peleg D (2008) Local spreading algorithms for autonomous robot systems. Theoret Comput Sci 399(1):71–82. Structural Information and Communication Complexity (SIROCCO 2006)
Czyzowicz J, Gasieniec L, Pelc A (2006) Gathering few fat mobile robots in the plane. In: Shvartsman MMAA (ed) Principles of distributed systems. Berlin, Heidelberg, 2006. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, pages 350–364
DST. Uv disinfection trolley can effectively clean up hospital spaces to combat covid-19. https://vigyanprasar.gov.in/vigyan-samachar/. Accessed: 2020-08-09
Défago X, Souissi S (2008) Non-uniform circle formation algorithm for oblivious mobile robots with convergence toward uniformity. Theoret Comput Sci 396(1):97–112
Efrima A, Peleg D (2007) Distributed algorithms for partitioning a swarm of autonomous mobile robots. In: Prencipe G, Zaks S (eds) Structural information and communication complexity. Berlin, Heidelberg. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pages 180–194
Flocchini P, Prencipe G, Santoro N, Widmayer P (2008) Arbitrary pattern formation by asynchronous, anonymous, oblivious robots. Theoret Comput Sci 407(1):412–447
Heo N, Varshney PK (2003) A distributed self spreading algorithm for mobile wireless sensor networks. In: 2003 IEEE wireless communications and networking, 2003. WCNC 2003, vol 3, pages 1597–1602
Hsiang T-R, Arkin EM, Bender MA, Fekete SP, Mitchell JSB (2004) Algorithms for rapidly dispersing robot swarms in unknown environments. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 77–93
Kasuya M, Ito N, Inuzuka N, Wada K (2006) A pattern formation algorithm for a set of autonomous distributed robots with agreement on orientation along one axis. Syst Comput Jpn 37(10):89–100
Katreniak B (2005) Biangular circle formation by asynchronous mobile robots. In: Pelc A, Raynal M (eds) Structural information and communication complexity. Berlin, Heidelberg. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pages 185–199
Kshemkalyani AD, Molla AR, Sharma G (2020) Dispersion of mobile robots on grids. In: Rahman MS, Sadakane K, Sung W-K (eds) WALCOM: algorithms and computation. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 183–197
Li X, Santoro N (2006) An integrated self-deployment and coverage maintenance scheme for mobile sensor networks. In: Cao J, Stojmenovic I, Jia X, Das SK (eds) Mobile Ad-hoc and sensor networks. Berlin, Heidelberg. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pages 847–860
Payton D, Estkowski R, Howard M (2005) Pheromone robotics and the logic of virtual pheromones. In: Şahin E, Spears WM (eds) Swarm robotics. Berlin, Heidelberg. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pages 45–57
Poudel P, Sharma G (2019) Time-optimal uniform scattering in a grid. In: Proceedings of the 20th international conference on distributed computing and networking, ICDCN ’19, New York. Association for computing machinery, page 228–237
Poudel P, Sharma G (2020) Fast uniform scattering on a grid for asynchronous oblivious robots. In: Devismes S, Mittal N (eds) Stabilization. Safety, and security of distributed systems. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 211–228
Schranz M, Umlauft M, Sende M, Elmenreich W (2020) Swarm robotic behaviors and current applications. Front Robot AI 7:36
Simon M, The covid-19 pandemic is a crisis that robots were built for. https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-pandemic-robots/. Accessed: 2020-08-09
Yamauchi Y, Yamashita M (2013) Pattern formation by mobile robots with limited visibility. In: Moscibroda T, Rescigno AA (eds) Structural information and communication complexity. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 201–212
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Mondal, M., Chaudhuri, S.G., Chatterjee, P. (2021). Uniform Grid Formation by Asynchronous Fat Robots. In: Mandal, J.K., Mukhopadhyay, S., Unal, A., Sen, S.K. (eds) Proceedings of International Conference on Innovations in Software Architecture and Computational Systems. Studies in Autonomic, Data-driven and Industrial Computing. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4301-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4301-9_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-16-4300-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-16-4301-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)