Exploration System for Distributed Swarm Robots Using Probabilistic Action Decisions

In this paper, we propose a new distributed exploration system consisting of a parent robot and a group of ground-mobile child robots that search the surrounding area to solve the low efficiency of planetary exploration by relatively large robots such as NASA’s Curiosity. The proposed system is a probabilistic algorithm, in which robots act based on a specified probability distribution. A distributed swarm robot system based on the proposed algorithm was constructed in real space and validated by developing and testing robots named RED for experimental demonstration. The effectiveness of the proposed system was evaluated through experiments. Experimental results showed that the robot explored the region according to the specified probability distribution.