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This paper proposes an approach to manage the collective movement of robot groups, based on virtual fields, situation awareness and basic behaviour blending. Being of reactive nature, the method is intended for local navigation. The robots are anonymous, the navigation system is fully decentralized and there in not need of leader or specific coordination protocol. Robots can simply navigate holding the cohesion of the group or they can also navigate building up some kind of formation. The method can be implemented providing a set of simple suitable rules to the robots. It has been consistently tested both in simulations and experiments carried out on robot formations, proving to be reliable. The main results achieved are presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the preceding paper, a method for mobile robot navigation control based on discrimination of multiple artificial fields was introduced. In this second paper, the method is extended to robot formations. Experimental demonstrations are presented taking examples of four types of formations. The experiments cover formation initialization, maneuvering, obstacle avoidance and formation switching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces a method for local navigation of mobile robots based on the discrimination of multiple artificial fields, which correspond to targets, obstacles, robots and, if this is the case, robot collectives. Instead of just adding up all potentials, the robot discerns the pertinent potentials at its location and applies a set of motion decisions at each moment. Satisfactory results are obtained. This is the first paper of a more extensive work dealing with individual robots, unorganized groups of robot and robot formations. Here, the method is introduced, with examples for a single robot and for several independent robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some facets of our robotics research require the simulation of a mobile vehicle to study navigation and control problems. We have developed a 3-D animated graphical simulation of the movement of a wheeled vehicle under interactive control of the computer user. The article describes the mathematical formulation of the dynamics and the programming procedure to display the vehicle movement. Besides the possible use of our program for robotics education, the aspects covered by this article could be useful for motivating mechanics and graphics programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]