Experimental validation of source seeking with a switching strategy

We design a switching strategy for a group of robots to search for a local minimum of an unknown noisy scalar field. Starting with individual exploration, the robots switch to cooperative exploration only when they are not able to locate the field minimum based on the information collected individually. In order to test and demonstrate the switching strategy in real-world environment, we implement the switching strategy on a multi-robot test-bed. The behaviors of a group of robots are compared when different parameters for exploration are adopted. Especially, we observe the effect of memory lengths on the switching behaviors as predicted by theoretical results. The experimental results also justify the effects of different formation sizes and noise attenuation levels on the performance of the cooperative H_∞ filter that are utilized in the cooperative exploration phase.