Multiple targets enclosure by robotic swarm

• Target enclosure robot swarm for multiple targets is proposed.
• The analytical verification of a small size swarm of the proposed robot for single target is described.
• The enclosure behavior for 1-, 2-, 3 targets by a larger group (n<80n<80) is examined by computer simulations.
• The capability to assign robots equally to 2 targets is shown by the extensive computer simulation (n<200n<200).

Target enclosure by autonomous robots is useful for many practical applications, for example, surveillance of disaster sites. Scalability is important for autonomous robots because a larger group is more robust against breakdown, accidents, and failure. However, since the traditional models have discussed only the cases in which minimum number of robots enclose a single target, there has been no study on the utilization of the redundant number of robots. In this paper, to achieve a highly scalable target enclosure model about the number of target to enclose, we introduce swarm based task assignment capability to Takayama’s enclosure model. The original model discussed only single target environment but it is well suited for applying to the environments with multiple targets. We show the robots can enclose the targets without predefined position assignment by analytic discussion based on switched systems and a series of computer simulations. As a consequence of this property, the proposed robots can change their target according to the criterion about robot density while they enclose multiple targets.