CENTRALIZED CONTROL OF A SWARM OF MOBILE ROBOTS WITHIN A MOTION CAPTURE ENVIRONMENT: BUILDING A PHYSICAL PLATFORM FOR EXPERIMENTAL EXPLORATION
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Abstract
This thesis presents the implementation of a centralized control system for co
ordinating a swarm of omni-directional mobile robots within a motion capture environment. The primary objective is to establish a physical platform that enables experimental exploration of swarm robotics algorithms and control strategies. The system comprises multiple omni-directional robots equipped with onboard controllers with wireless communication capabilities. A motion capture system tracks the robots’ real-time positions and orientations, providing accurate localization data to a central control station. The control station runs the controller following a flocking algorithm that generates desired trajectories for the leader and velocities for the agents (follower robots) based on the swarm’s collective behavior and the global environmental information obtained from the motion capture system. The thesis details the hardware and software components of the system, including the omni-directional mobile robots, the integration of the motion capture system, and the development of the centralized control algorithm. Experimental results are presented to validate the system’s performance and demonstrate its potential for investigating various swarm robotics scenarios, such as collective exploration, formation control, and behavior study of the swarm. The centralized control platform offers a flexible and scalable testbed that can serve as a valuable foundation for future research on multi-robot and swarm robotics algorithms. The knowledge and insights gained from this physical platform will facilitate the development and evaluation of advanced swarm control strategies in a controlled and instrumented environment.