Abstract
This paper presents a locally communicative interaction approach for mobile robot swarms towards building sensor networks. The decentralized approach is composed of neighbor selection and neighbor updating algorithms. First, the neighbor selection algorithm enables robots to select individual neighbor robots with higher connectivity and reaching agreement on mutual neighbors, resulting in building a swarm network. Secondly, the neighbor updating algorithm allows the robots to maintain their network despite its topological changes by the movement of a neighbor robot. Specifically, the proposed algorithms provide robust capability of the swarm network regardless of loss of several robots. We discuss in details the features of the algorithms, including self-organization, self-adaptation, and robustness. Through the simulations, the proposed algorithms are verified to be effective for the habitat and/or environmental monitoring by robotic sensor networks.
