Leader-Follower Formation System of Multi-Mobile Robots for Gas Source Searching

Currently, robots are used to help dangerous human activities, including monitoring and searching for sources of toxic and flammable gases. One of the characteristics of a gas leak is that the direction of the gas changes easily due to wind. Therefore, when using a mobile robot, it will easily lose the direction of the gas plume which results in the longer time needed to find the gas source. In this study, the method of searching for gas source has been developed with the leader-follower formation system. This formation aims to make the multi-mobile robots not easily lose the direction of the gas plume. A simple Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to configure V-shaped formation and keep the distance among the robots. The XBee module is used to transmit the data and measure the distance of each robot using the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) value. The Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) method is applied to mobile robot navigation to track the gas plume. The PSO algorithm and the FLC method are implemented in the Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller. The experimental results show that the mobile robot team can maintain a distance of 1 to 2 meters between each robot.