A multi-robot exploration algorithm based on a static Bluetooth communication chain

In the first part of the present paper, a novel communication scheme of an autonomous robot team via Bluetooth radio is investigated. In the presented solution, an autonomous unit is equipped with two independent Bluetooth radios and so a relatively fast communication is possible in the team in a static (i.e. no ad-hoc) networking topology. The performance of such a network was tested by implementing a linear graph topology by NXT robots. It was found that the reliability and the speed of such a communication scheme are satisfactory and give rise to applications in a robot team control task. In the second part of the paper an area exploration method is presented based on the static linear communication network above. The method was tested by computer simulations for various obstacle configurations and densities. It was found that the proposed method performs better than the chosen reference methods in the case of zero or low obstacle density and when high (75% or 100%) exploration ratio is required. With a simple proof, we have shown that the proposed (fixed chain-like team) exploration method is optimal in the obstacle-free case under the constraint of the connectivity with the base station.