Wheeled mobile robot control using virtual pheromones and neural networks

This paper presents a novel approach on the implementation of the concept of "virtual pheromones" for use in controlling autonomous mobile robots. Rather than being deployed in the environment, the virtual pheromones are stored in a map of the environment maintained and updated by a "pheromone server". This map acts like a shared memory for all the agents, by means of a radio communication link between each agent and the pheromone server. No direct communication between agents is required. The pheromone server can be implemented on a regular computer, a handheld device, or an embedded controller carried by a leader robot. The technique described is equally applicable for guiding individual robot and robot swarms. The experiments, performed with mobile robot Pioneer 3-DX show that this method allows significant simplification and cost reduction of the autonomous agents. Several possible applications are discussed.