The recent advance of embedded systems has enabled the capability and availability of small mobile robots.  The availability of small mobile robots has impact on the possibility of artificial robotic swarms to construct a multirobot system consisting of a large number of (mostly) simple physical robots.  In general, the objective of a swarm is to accomplish a task which would otherwise be impossible for an individual simple physical robot.  To provide a tool for studying robotic swarms and miniature mobile robots, we have introduced our Wanda robots in 2010. Along with the miniature robots, we have recently also implemented a beamer-assisted arena for robot experiments and a multi-robot- and sensor-simulator. The simulation framework utilizes the graphics hardware to efficiently and effectively simulate the sensor data, including RGB-sensors, camera sensors, infrared communication, and ranging sensors.

As batteries are the main power sources, one non-functional but important issue is the reduction of the power consumption and the improvement of the power availability by recharging. Ideally, with the help of a recharging facility the swarm can continue by shifting the limit from power source to component failure.  We have recently introduced the recharging capability in the arena so that the lifetime of the robots can be prolonged. As robots are moving around the arena autonomously, it is essential and critical to have an autonomous algorithm to decide and plan how to utilize the recharging station. In our arena, all the robots share a charging station, which can host several robots at the same time. This makes resource sharing indispensable among individual robots.

This thesis will explore how to achieve a global collaborative and effective use of the shared recharging station. The tasks are as follows: (1) integrate and design the behavior related to the recharging station in the simulator, (2) design a collaborative scheme for recharging planning, and (3) evaluate the performance of the recharging planning.  The fundamental knowledge to program with C or C++ is assumed. The tasks can be broken down as follows:

• 30%: analysis
• 50%: implementation
• 20%: evaluations

Any further queries or clarifications can be directed to Msc. Waqaas Munawar, Dipl.-Phys. Alexander Kettler, or Dr. Jian-Jia Chen.  If you have an interest in our research activities just drop by our offices for coffee and discussion.