Centralization vs. decentralization in multi-robot sweep coverage with ground robots and UAVs
DOI10.5281/zenodo.14846075Zenodo14846075MaRDI QIDQ6718043FDOQ6718043
Dataset published at Zenodo repository.
Mostafa Wahby, Marco Dorigo, Aryo Jamshidpey, Weixu Zhu, Michael Allwright, Mary Katherine Heinrich
Publication date: 10 February 2025
Copyright license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
This dataset accompanies an article submission and a code repository.In swarm robotics, decentralized control is often proposed as a more scalable and fault-tolerant alternative to centralized control. However, centralized behaviors are often faster and more efficient than their decentralized counterparts. In any given application, the goals and constraints of the task being solved should guide the choice to use centralized control, decentralized control, or a combination of the two. Currently, the exact trade-offs that exist between centralization and decentralization are not well defined. In this paper, we study comparative performance assessment between centralization and decentralization in the example task of sweep coverage, across five different types of multi-robot control structures: random walk, decentralized with beacons, hybrid formation control using self-organizing hierarchy, centralized formation control, and predetermined. In all five approaches, the coverage task is completed by a group of ground robots. In each approach, except for the random walk, the ground robots are assisted by UAVs, acting as supervisors or beacons. We compare the approaches in terms of three performance metrics for which centralized approaches are expected to have an advantage coverage completeness, coverage uniformity, and sweep completion time and two metrics for which decentralized approaches are expected to have an advantage scalability (4, 8, or 16 ground robots) and fault tolerance (0%, 25%, 50%, or 75% ground robot failure).Finally, we discuss future work on combining the advantages of both in one system.
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