Distributed Map Classification using Local Observations
This work is significant for robotics and autonomous systems, specifically for improving the efficiency of map classification in large environments using multi-robot systems.
This paper addresses the problem of classifying a map using a team of communicating robots with local visual sensing. They propose an offline learning structure based on graph decomposition into star graphs, enabling robots to fuse information from neighbors and plan moves towards informative areas. This method significantly reduces computational cost and is scalable for large environments and robot teams.
We consider the problem of classifying a map using a team of communicating robots. It is assumed that all robots have localized visual sensing capabilities and can exchange their information with neighboring robots. Using a graph decomposition technique, we proposed an offline learning structure that makes every robot capable of communicating with and fusing information from its neighbors to plan its next move towards the most informative parts of the environment for map classification purposes. The main idea is to decompose a given undirected graph into a union of directed star graphs and train robots w.r.t a bounded number of star graphs. This will significantly reduce the computational cost of offline training and makes learning scalable (independent of the number of robots). Our approach is particularly useful for fast map classification in large environments using a large number of communicating robots. We validate the usefulness of our proposed methodology through extensive simulations.