GroundScouts: Architecture for a modular micro robotic platform for swarm intelligence and cooperative robotics

This paper presents architecture for a modular micro robotic platform for swarm intelligence and cooperative robotics research and applications. In a swarm the value of an individual is negligible since the goal of the swarm is essential. Thus, the agents (robots) need to be small, low cost, and cooperative. GroundScouts are designed based on these conditions. The proposed architecture slices a robot into abstract modules such as locomotion, control, sensors, communication, and actuation. Any mobile robot can be constructed by combining these abstract modules for a specific application. A modular embedded micro-OS with dynamic task uploading and multi-tasking abilities is developed in order to create better interface between robots and the command center and among the robots. The dynamic task uploading allows the robots change their behaviors in runtime. Thus, the robots can work in swarm, master-slave, or hybrid mode and possibly be used in other applications such as mobile sensor networks, remote sensing, and plant monitoring.