Tree formation multi-robot system for victim search in a devastated indoor space

A new scheme called "S3 RoboNet: self spreading search robot network" is proposed and described, which employs a multi-robot system to search for victims in a devastated indoor space such as inside of a collapsed building right after a large earthquake. In this scheme, numerous mobile robot agents form and expand a virtual network autonomously, in which the distance between every pair of adjacent node agents are kept within a limit so that they can keep locating each other. The network virtually composes a topological search map by itself and generates an artificial velocity potential in order to drive free agents towards unexplored regions and to make node agents spread links among them as far as possible. Thereby, the network spreads itself only by adding a new free or a node agent at the root of the tree located at the entrance of the space to be searched. The concepts and the algorithms of the present scheme are described and its feasibility and essential performance are analyzed by simulation, and both effectiveness and current problems are discussed.