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Distributed Learning of Cooperative Robotic Behaviors Using Particle Swarm Optimization

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Experimental Robotics

Part of the book series: Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics ((STAR,volume 109))

Abstract

In this paper we study the automatic synthesis of robotic controllers for the coordinated movement of multiple mobile robots. The algorithm used to learn the controllers is a noise-resistant version of Particle Swarm Optimization, which is applied in two different settings: centralized and distributed learning. In centralized learning, every robot runs the same controller and the performance is evaluated with a global metric. In the distributed learning, robots run different controllers and the performance is evaluated independently on each robot with a local metric. Our results from learning in simulation show that it is possible to learn a cooperative task in a fully distributed way employing a local metric, and we validate the simulations with real robot experiments where the best solutions from distributed and centralized learning achieve similar performances.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation through the National Center of Competence in Research Robotics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Distributed Intelligent Systems and Algorithms Laboratory, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Ezequiel Di Mario, Iñaki Navarro & Alcherio Martinoli

Authors
  1. Ezequiel Di Mario
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  2. Iñaki Navarro
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  3. Alcherio Martinoli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ezequiel Di Mario .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    M. Ani Hsieh

  2. Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Oussama Khatib

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Vijay Kumar

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Di Mario, E., Navarro, I., Martinoli, A. (2016). Distributed Learning of Cooperative Robotic Behaviors Using Particle Swarm Optimization. In: Hsieh, M., Khatib, O., Kumar, V. (eds) Experimental Robotics. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 109. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23778-7_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23778-7_39

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23777-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23778-7

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