GenGrid: A Generalised Distributed Experimental Environmental Grid for Swarm Robotics

Abstract: GenGrid is a novel comprehensive open-source, distributed platform intended for conducting extensive swarm robotic experiments. The modular platform is designed to run swarm robotics experiments that are compatible with different types of mobile robots ranging from Colias, Kilobot, and E puck. The platform offers programmable control over the experimental setup and its parameters and acts as a tool to collect swarm robot data, including localization, sensory feedback, messaging, and interaction. GenGrid is designed as a modular grid of attachable computing nodes that offers bidirectional communication between the robotic agent and grid nodes and within grids. The paper describes the hardware and software architecture design of the GenGrid system. Further, it discusses some common experimental studies covering multi-robot and swarm robotics to showcase the platform's use. GenGrid of 25 homogeneous cells with identical sensing and communication characteristics with a footprint of 37.5 cm X 37.5 cm, exhibits multiple capabilities with minimal resources. The open-source hardware platform is handy for running swarm experiments, including robot hopping based on multiple gradients, collective transport, shepherding, continuous pheromone deposition, and subsequent evaporation. The low-cost, modular, and open-source platform is significant in the swarm robotics research community, which is currently driven by commercial platforms that allow minimal modifications.