Automatic control of robotic swarm during convex shape generation

An algorithm of rectilinear motion control and navigation of swarm of autonomous homogeneous mobile robots involved in the formation of a convex space surface is discussed. Calculation of robot trajectories during reconfiguration is carried out taking into account minimization of the expenditure of time and energy (calculation time and the total length of robot paths), and control of collisions. The developed algorithm has quadratic computational complexity. During the experiments the reconfiguration of swarm with various numbers of robots (from 10 to 10,000 robots) in convex shape was modelled. The number of collisions was evaluated assuming that the robots move rectilinearly to their targeted points, starting at the same time.