Minimizing the joining delay for cooperation in mobile robot networks

In this paper, we propose two joining delay minimization schemes (JDMS) and their hybrid version to minimize the delay that is caused by joining more robots to a cooperative working group of mobile-networked robots. The first scheme can operate without any feedback from the coordinator of the group, and therefore it utilizes a shorter time slot than does the second scheme. However, the second scheme can provide a stable slope of the joining delay, while the delay of the first scheme is rapidly increased when the number of the required robots approaches the number of the neighboring robots. We extensively analyze and evaluate these two schemes in terms of their joining delays, and then we derive the criteria for combining them for exploiting their opposite characteristics.