Auction-based solution for the ordering problem in robotic self-assembly

Autonomous construction is a process that uses robots to build structures. In those, the self-assembly denotes the robotic construction solutions where the robots are used as the structure parts. A common problem in self-assembly strategies is that given a homogeneous group of robots (a swarm), how the next robot to assemble a structure can be selected. Such selection can be even more complex if there are multiple structures being assembled simultaneously by the same group of robots. In this paper, we model the selection of robots as a task assignment problem, and we propose an auction-based method to compute an order of which robots will move to structures being assembled. Our algorithms are validated using mathematical proofs and simulations. The analysis of the results shows that our algorithms outperform a baseline selection method while guaranteeing communication between robots in the swarm. Moreover, our solution is shown to be power efficient, reducing battery consumption while the robot is in an idle state, waiting to be assigned.