VIDEO PLANE ROBOT SWARMS

This paper proposes a novel and practical method of controlling a very large number of small mobile robots undertaking a cooperative task si mply by the use of a TV monitor or projector as the control surface an d an overhead camera as an observer and communications receiver. An im plementation to test this concept is described to give some indication of the potential of this methodology, Ultimately, many tasks such as carrying, sorting, cleaning, material handling, cutting and assembling could be carried out using such an approach. Specialized robots can b e mixed and matched to meet the task requirements which can themselves change from time to time.