Using swarm robots based on leader-followers method for spherical object manipulation

In this paper, a method based on leader-follower robots for spherical object manipulation by swarm robots is proposed. For this purpose, 3 differential robots having 2 wheels have been used that one of them is the group leader and 2 others are followers. At first, the leader which knows position of obstacles in the environment, designs optimal path to the goal, and then 2 other robots move with keeping their distance to the leader. As the result, triangular formation of robots is always kept around the object and it will be transported by robots. We will show that this system is a nonlinear system and obtain its control equations from I/O feedback linearization method. Finally, the simulation results of this method are presented which illustrates its satisfactory performance.