Lopes, Y.K., Trenkwalder, S.M., Leal, A.B. et al. (2 more authors) (2016) Supervisory control theory applied to swarm robotics. SWARM INTELLIGENCE, 10 (1). pp. 65-97. ISSN 1935-3812
Abstract
Currently, the control software of swarm robotics systems is created by ad hoc development. This makes it hard to deploy these systems in real-world scenarios. In particular, it is difficult to maintain, analyse, or verify the systems. Formal methods can contribute to overcome these problems. However, they usually do not guarantee that the implementation matches the specification, because the system’s control code is typically generated manually. Also, there is cultural resistance to apply formal methods; they may be perceived as an additional step that does not add value to the final product. To address these problems, we propose supervisory control theory for the domain of swarm robotics. The advantages of supervisory control theory, and its associated tools, are a reduction in the amount of ad hoc development, the automatic generation of control code from modelled specifications, proofs of properties over generated control code, and the reusability of formally designed controllers between different robotic platforms. These advantages are demonstrated in four case studies using the e-puck and Kilobot robot platforms. Experiments with up to 600 physical robots are reported, which show that supervisory control theory can be used to formally develop state-of-the-art solutions to a range of problems in swarm robotics.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2016 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
Keywords: | Supervisory control theory; Swarm robotics; Formal methods; Kilobot; e-puck; Automatic code generation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jul 2016 09:59 |
Last Modified: | 19 Jul 2016 09:59 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11721-016-0119-0 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Verlag |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s11721-016-0119-0 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:101943 |