SwarmTalk - Towards benchmark software suites for swarm robotics platforms

Yihan Zhang, Lyon Zhang, Hanlin Wang, Fabián E. Bustamante, Michael Rubenstein

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

With nearly every new swarm robotic platform built, the designers develop its software stack, from low-level drivers to high-level algorithmic implementations. And while the different software stacks frequently share components, especially in robot-to-robot communication, these common components are also developed from scratch time and again. We present SwarmTalk, a new communication library that can be quickly ported to new and existing swarm hardware. SwarmTalk adopts a publish-subscribe communication model that satisfies the severe hardware constraints found in many swarms, and provides an easy-to-use programming interface. We port our SwarmTalk prototype to two hardware swarm platforms and two simulator-based platforms, and implement commonly-used swarm algorithms on these four platforms. We present the design and implementation of SwarmTalk, discuss some of the system challenges in implementation and cross-platform porting, and report on our initial experiences as a common communication abstraction for a community benchmarking suite.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2020
EditorsBo An, Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, Gita Sukthankar
PublisherInternational Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (IFAAMAS)
Pages1638-1646
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9781450375184
StatePublished - 2020
Event19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2020 - Virtual, Auckland, New Zealand
Duration: May 19 2020 → …

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS
Volume2020-May
ISSN (Print)1548-8403
ISSN (Electronic)1558-2914

Conference

Conference19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2020
Country/TerritoryNew Zealand
CityVirtual, Auckland
Period5/19/20 → …

Keywords

  • Benchmarks
  • Communication
  • Swarm robotics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Software
  • Control and Systems Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'SwarmTalk - Towards benchmark software suites for swarm robotics platforms'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this