A Robot Team Exploration and Dispersion

In the event of an earthquake or fire, search and rescue efforts may be delayed until it is safe for humans to enter the area. Instead of allowing that time to be completely wasted, a team of robots could enter in advance to create maps and collect images and locations of interest to the rescue team, so that the human team may plan their approach once it is safe for them to enter. In a disaster area, communication is often very limited, either due to downed or overworked networks, or because of interference in the environment, such as thick barriers of debris. We have developed a set of distributed algorithms that make use of a team of robots to fully explore an unknown environment even with restrictions on communication, team size, and available sensors. We show, through proofs and experiments, that the algorithm will allow the team of robots to fully explore the environment and maintain the necessary communication to return the information to the waiting search and rescue team.