A study of RSSI-based formation control algorithm for multiple mobile robots

This paper describes a formation planning control algorithm that uses the radio's received signal strength indicator (RSSI) on the meshed-network wireless sensor installed on multiple mobile robots. The proposed algorithm is applicable to mobile robots that require only the RSSI signal and directional sensor. Once the global target direction is set, the mobile robots autonomously cooperate to align in a predetermined formation based on the proposed control algorithm. The proposed control algorithm is robust against sensor error by maintaining mesh network communication. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is confirmed by both simulation and actual experiments using multiple mobile robots.