Helping Robots Move

Long programs known as algorithms are written to help robots move about on their own. These algorithms can be of two types – centralised and decentralised. In the centralised system the decisions for movement of all robots are made by one single computer. While in the decentralised version each robot makes decisions for itself. As you can understand from this primary difference, designing a decentralised algorithm which helps robots move is fairly difficult.

Also one major advantage the decentralised system has is that even if one of the computers shuts down, the others can still make decisions. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the researchers have been working on a decentralised system for teams of robots that factors in not only stationary obstacles, but also moving obstacles. The system that they have come up with takes far less bandwidth for the communication as well as ensures that they never collide.

Even though each robot is essentially guessing what the other robot is going to do, the decentralised system is what the future of robotics needs. Designing the system had the researchers combining many challenging goals. It is still far from perfected, but it is a good start to an interesting science project which will be fairly long lasting.