Control of Distributed Robotic Macrosensors


Brian Shucker
MIT Lincoln Lab


We present a novel, fully decentralized control mechanism 
for distributed robotic macrosensors (DRMs).  DRMs are comprised of 
large numbers of sensor-equipped, inexpensive mobile robots, in which 
the desired large-scale properties of the sensing system emerge from 
simple pair-wise interactions of its component robots. Robots in the 
macrosensor interact with their immediate neighbors using a dynamic 
virtual spring mesh abstraction, which is governed by a simple physics 
model.  By carefully defining the nature of the spring mesh and the 
associated physics model, it is possible to create a number of 
desirable global behaviors without any global control or 
configuration.  Properties of the resulting macrosensor include 
arbitrary scalability, sophisticated target tracking ability, and 
inherent fault tolerance.  Simulation results are presented to show 
the effectiveness of the spring mesh approach.  To formally prove the 
stability of the spring mesh system, a new analytical technique is 
developed; this technique has broad applications to distributed 
control systems beyond spring mesh applications.  Finally, the 
simulated and theoretical results are validated with limited hardware 
tests using a small fleet of mobile robots.