Cloud based real-time multi-robot collision avoidance for swarm robotics

The IoT Cloud is a cloud platform for implementing applications that remotely control smart devices or process a huge amount of real time stream data from a massive number of physical devices. Such platforms shift computation load from the device to the cloud and provide powerful processing capabilities to a simple device. In Swarm robotics, robots are supposed to be small, energy efficient and low-cost, but still smart enough to carry out individual and swarm intelligence. These two goals are normally contradictory to each other. Besides, in real world robot control, real time on-line data processing is required, but most of the current Cloud Robotic Systems are focusing on off-line batch processing. However, the IoT Cloud may provide a way that leads this research area out of its dilemma. This paper explores the availability of IoT Cloud for real time control of massive complex robots by implementing a relatively complicated but better performed local collision avoidance algorithm on the platform. The IoT Cloud application and the IoT Cloud Driver, which connects the robot and the Cloud, are developed and deployed in the IoT Cloud. Simulation tests are carried out and the results show that, when the number of robots increases, by simply scaling the computation resources for the application, the algorithm can still maintain the preset control frequency. Such characteristics verify that the IoT Cloud is a new platform for studying massive complex robots in swarm robotics. Key word: Internet of things, cloud computing, swarm robotics, swarm intelligence, collision avoidance, real time stream processing