Synchronization and quorum sensing in a swarm of humanoid robots

Abstract: With the advent of inexpensive simple humanoid robots, new classes of robotic questions can be considered experimentally. One of these is collective behavior of groups of humanoid robots, and in particular robot synchronization and swarming. The goal of this work is to robustly synchronize a group of humanoid robots, and to demonstrate the approach experimentally on a choreography of 8 robots. We aim to be robust to network latencies, and to allow robots to join or leave the group at any time (for example a fallen robot should be able to stand up to rejoin the choreography). Contraction theory is used to allow each robot in the group to synchronize to a common virtual oscillator, and quorum sensing strategies are exploited to fit within the available bandwidth. The humanoids used are Nao's, developed by Aldebaran Robotics.