Swarming in the Wild: A Distributed Communication-less Lloyd-based Algorithm dealing with Uncertainties

Abstract: In this work, we present a distributed algorithm for swarming in complex environments that operates with no communication, no a priori information about the environment, and using only onboard sensing and computation capabilities. We provide sufficient conditions to guarantee that each robot reaches its goal region in a finite time, avoiding collisions with obstacles and other robots without exceeding a desired maximum distance from a predefined set of neighbors (flocking constraint). In addition, we show how the proposed algorithm can deal with tracking errors and onboard sensing errors without violating safety and proximity constraints, still providing the conditions for having convergence towards the goal region. To validate the approach, we provide experiments in the field. We tested our algorithm in GNSS-denied environments i.e., a dense forest, where fully autonomous aerial robots swarmed safely to the desired destinations, by relying only on onboard sensors, i.e., without a communication network. This work marks the initial deployment of a fully distributed system where there is no communication between the robots, nor reliance on any global localization system, which at the same time it ensures safety and convergence towards the goal within such complex environments.