Minimizing data exchange in ad hoc multi-robot networks

In many multi-robot applications, ad hoc networks are formed for data communication, which enables effective decision making and results in significant energy and time saving. However, unnecessary large volumes of communication data may still lead to big time delay and energy waste. This paper addresses the problem of how to reduce the data exchange among multiple robots when they carry out cooperative area exploration or coverage. In this application, multiple robots need exchange map information in order to minimize the repeated exploration or coverage. When a connected ad hoc network can not be maintained, the map data exchange or synchronization should be carefully dealt with in order to reduce the volume of data exchange. In this paper, a novel sequence number-based map representation scheme and an effective robot map update tracking scheme are proposed. Based on them, an algorithm is developed to reduce the volumes of map data exchange when robot subnetworks merge. Simulation results validate this algorithm