Dispersion behaviors for a team of multiple miniature robots

To safely and efficiently guide search and rescue operations in disaster areas, gathering of relevant information such as the locations of victims, must occur swiftly. Using the concept of “repellent virtual pheromones” inspired by insect colony coordination behaviors, miniature robots can be quickly dispersed to survey a disaster site. Assisted by visual servoing, dispersion of the miniature robots can quickly cover an area. An external observer such as another robot or an overhead camera is brought into the control loop to provide each miniature robot estimations of the positions of all of the other nearby robots in the robotic team. Each robot can then move away from the other nearby robots, resulting in the robot collective swiftly dispersing through the local area. The technique has been implemented using the miniature Scout robots, developed by the Center for Distributed Robotics at the University of Minnesota, which are well-suited to surveillance and reconnaissance missions.