Multi-robotic system with self-organization for search of targets in covered area

The paper introduces the multi-robot area coverage problem, wherein a group of robots must inspect every point of a 2-dimensional test environment and surround all contaminations (or enemies) found. Self-organizing robotic systems are able to accomplish complex tasks in a changing environment, using local interactions among individual agents and local environment without an external global control. Our interest in this area is motivated by an involvement in a project with a goal to solve tasks of difficult area coverage and surveillance by a large team of small autonomous robots. In the paper, the architecture to achieve this is described, and simulation results are presented to compare efficiency of coverage of the area and surround of found targets using robots groups having different sensors ranges.