Autonomous multi-robot exploration in communication-limited environments

Teams of communicating robots are likely to be used for a wide range of applications in the near future, such as robotic search and rescue or robotic exploration of hostile and remote environments. In such scenarios, environments are likely to contain significant interference and multi-robot systems must be able to cope with loss of communication. We propose a novel multi-robot exploration approach, role-based exploration, in which members of the team explicitly plan to explore beyond communication range limits. Rendezvous points are calculated carefully to improve the exploration efficiency. A dynamic team hierarchy leads to additional gains. The result is a hybrid centralised/distributed behaviour that adjusts reactively to communication availability and environment size.