Self-configuring robot swarms with dual rotating infrared sensors

This paper presents practical design and hardware implementation issues of self-configuring swarms of autonomous mobile robots. For the purpose, we develop a new low-cost position detection system that we call dual rotating infrared (DRIr) sensor. The DRIr sensor can provide robots with advanced sensing capabilities that give reliable information about the position and surface geometry of neighboring robots and obstacles. Special focus is placed on how to realize the observation and object identification of mobile robots through the use of DRIr sensors. We verify the functionality and performance of the DRIr sensors mounted on a commercial mobile robot. Experimental results show that a swarm of mobile robots equipped with the DRIr sensors can autonomously configure themselves into an area.