Check out the video of this SUPERIOT technology demonstration at University of Bristol! The researchers are very pleased with the added functionality that the SUPERIOT tags have enabled on the swarm robot logistics research.
The three robots roam around at random, collecting BLE advertisements from the tags on the carriers. These advertisements contain a number identifying the carrier (which is also encoded in a marker on the side of the carrier), and also an urgency number. When a robot spots carrier markers with its cameras, it will look at its received urgency values and pick the carrier with the best balance of urgency and proximity.
It then approaches, and docks with the underside of the carrier. At this point it connects to the tag to update the status to indicate it has been picked up (orange colour), delivers the carrier to the right-hand side of the arena, and connects to the tag again to indicate it has been delivered (green colour). It will then resume looking for more undelivered carriers.
The SUPERIOT tags on the carriers allow the robots to prioritise boxes dynamically as they are loaded up. Energy consumption of the tags has been evaluated and optimised.
