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On the Synthesis of Mobile Robots Algorithms: The Case of Ring Gathering

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Book cover Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems (SSS 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8756))

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Abstract

Recent advances in Distributed Computing highlight models and algorithms for autonomous swarms of mobile robots that self-organize and cooperate to solve global objectives. The overwhelming majority of works so far considers handmade algorithms and correctness proofs.

This paper is the first to propose a formal framework to automatically design distributed algorithms that are dedicated to autonomous mobile robots evolving in a discrete space. As a case study, we consider the problem of gathering all robots at a particular location, not known beforehand. Our contribution is threefold. First, we propose an encoding of the gathering problem as a reachability game. Then, we automatically generate an optimal distributed algorithm for three robots evolving on a fixed size uniform ring. Finally, we prove by induction that the generated algorithm is also correct for any ring size except when an impossibility result holds (that is, when the number of robots divides the ring size).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7606, LIP6, F-75005, Paris, France

    Laure Millet, Maria Potop-Butucaru, Nathalie Sznajder & Sébastien Tixeuil

  2. CNRS, UMR 7606, LIP6, F-75005, Paris, France

    Laure Millet, Maria Potop-Butucaru, Nathalie Sznajder & Sébastien Tixeuil

  3. Institut Universitaire de France, France

    Sébastien Tixeuil

Authors
  1. Laure Millet
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  2. Maria Potop-Butucaru
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  3. Nathalie Sznajder
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  4. Sébastien Tixeuil
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut d’informatique, Université de Neuchâtel, Rue Emile-Argand 11, 2000, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    Pascal Felber

  2. Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, 78712-0240, Austin, TX, USA

    Vijay Garg

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Millet, L., Potop-Butucaru, M., Sznajder, N., Tixeuil, S. (2014). On the Synthesis of Mobile Robots Algorithms: The Case of Ring Gathering. In: Felber, P., Garg, V. (eds) Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems. SSS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8756. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11764-5_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11764-5_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-11763-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-11764-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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