Distribution and communication of multi-robot system for detection in the underground mine disasters

For the environmental detection, survivors searching and long distance communication in the underground mine disasters, a heterogeneous multi-robot system was built based on the wireless sensor network (WSN). Two kinds of robots were proposed, and the circumstance was analyzed for the obstacle surmounting capability of the robots. A chain-based wireless sensor network was established with the robot as the sensor node. And a strategy of distribution of the nodal robots was proposed. The modular circuit was built under the Zigbee IC- CC2430, and the chain-based topology was implemented by trimming of the protocol stack Zigbee2006. The simulation based on NS-2 and the experiments showed that the strategy of the robot´s distribution and the method of communication satisfied the multi-robot system´s communication in the underground mine disasters.