Colonial Robotics: Sustained Operations

Large-scale populations of autonomous mobile robots inserted into remote and hostile environments will require autonomous maintenance. Issues include fault detection, identification and rectification as well as routine servicing. The cooperative autonomous robot colony architecture (CARC) demonstrates a coherent resolution strategy that enables near optimal physical graceful degradation on a sub-robotic scale. Proof of concept is demonstrated with experiments that verify sustained multi-robot operations within an error prone environment. CARC is a synergy of mobile agents that utilise a modular architecture and static agents that provide a base of operations. Maintenance issues include assembly, disassembly, routine service, fault detection and correction, and polymorphism. Faulty modules were identified and replaced, robots were disassembled or polymorphed. Hygienic simulation is the powerful tool that has enabled a walk-through of concept feasibility.