Dispersion of a swarm of robots based on realistic wireless intensity signals

The problem of dispersion in multi-robot systems could be loosely defined as maximizing the sensor coverage area while preserving the connectivity within the swarm. Dispersion of robotic swarms appears to be applicable and useful in missions such as planetary exploration, hurricane surveillance, or nuclear decontamination, where the robots with maximal coverage collect samples from the unknown surface, detect the victims, or collect nuclear waste, respectively. In this paper, a simple dispersion algorithm based on wireless signal intensities is proposed and tested in a physics based simulator of a robotic platform which is particularly designed to serve as a test-bed for swarm-robotic studies. The signal intensities are realistically modeled using sampling technique, taking both the distance and relative orientations of the wireless sensors into account. The only parameter of the algorithm, a threshold parameter, is optimized in order to maximize the sensor coverage and minimize the number of disconnected robots.