A Simplistic Approach to Reactive Multi-Robot Navigation in Unknown Environments

Multi-agent control is a very promising area of robotics. In applications for whichit is difficult or impossible for humans to intervene, the utilization of multi-agent,autonomous robot groups is indispensable. This thesis presents a novel approach toreactive multi-agent control that is practical and elegant in its simplicity. The basic ideaupon which this approach is based is that a group of robots can cooperate to determinethe shortest path through a previously unmapped environment by virtue of redundantsharing of simple data between multiple agents. The idea was implemented with tworobots. In simulation, it was tested with over sixty agents. The results clearly show thatthe shortest path through various environments emerges as a result of redundant sharingof information between agents. In addition, this approach exhibits safeguardingtechniques that reduce the risk to robot agents working in unknown and possiblyhazardous environments. Further, the simplicity of this approach makes implementationvery practical and easily expandable to reliably control a group comprised of manyagents