Cooperative Robotics with Sensorial Delay

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to study how the behavior of robots changes when the data from their sensors is affected by a delay. Robots of the model Elisa 3 are therefore studied while performing Brownian motion and with certain parameters varying as a function of the intensity measured by their sensors. Introducing a delay and varying its sign is shown to have a significant effect on a robot’s behavior. A single robot moving in an intensity field is either drawn to or avoiding higher intensities for a positive or a negative delay respectively. In this case experimental data shows good agreement with simulated behavior. Simulations also show that multiple robots should form clusters when interacting under the influence of a positive delay but the tendencies towards clustering that can be seen in the experiments are weaker. An increased detection range for the robots’ sensors is proposed as a future improvement.