Swarm Robot Materials Handling Paradigm for a Manufacturing Workcell

A manufacturing workcell model employs behavior-based swarm robots whose emergent behavior successfully performs the workcell’s required materials handling without central planning. Swarm robots are groups of autonomous mobile robots whose sensory-driven state behavior produces emergent group functionality not characteristic of the individual robots. Processing machines within the workcell broadcast load and unload request signals. Mobile robots swarm about the workcell avoiding collisions and listening for machine calls. Robots cannot communicate with each other, but will respond to any detected machine’s broadcast signal. The broadcast signal allows the robot to determine the type of service requested and the requesting machine’s heading. If the robot’s state indicates that the request can be satisfied, the robot moves along the heading seeking to dock with the calling machine and satisfying the machine’s request. A software simulation of this materials handling paradigm illustrates feasibility and establishes a constructive lower bound for autonomous materials handling performance.