Budget-Constrained Fault-Tolerant Mutual Visibility for Autonomous Robots under the Mobility Fault Model

2026-10-03

AI Summary

This study addresses the mutual visibility problem for opaque robot swarms in scenarios where bounded mobility budgets coexist with an arbitrary number of mobile faults. Operating within the semi-synchronous (SSYNC) model, this work proposes a deterministic distributed algorithm that leverages luminous robots to facilitate coordination. The approach accommodates non-rigid movements and requires only twelve light colors for communication among agents. The primary contribution lies in being the first to integrate mobility budget constraints with arbitrary mobile faults, ensuring that all non-faulty robots achieve unobstructed mutual visibility within finite time. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm strictly adheres to energy budget limitations while guaranteeing collision-free trajectories throughout the entire execution process.

Abstract

We investigate the mutual visibility problem for a swarm of $n\ge3$ autonomous mobile robots under the budget-constrained mobility fault model. The robots are opaque, so if three robots are collinear, the middle robot obstructs the visibility between the other two. Each robot is assigned a finite movement budget, reflecting its limited energy, that bounds the total distance it may traverse during the execution. Moreover, an arbitrary number of robots may become permanently immobile due to mobility faults. The objective is to design a distributed algorithm that enables the non-faulty robots to coordinate their movements so that, within a finite time, every non-faulty robot attains unobstructed visibility of all robots in the system, including the faulty ones, while respecting the prescribed movement budget. We consider luminous robots operating under the $\mathsf{SSYNC}$ model with non-rigid movements, without any agreement on their local coordinate systems, and equipped only with a {\it common fixed reference point}. We present a deterministic distributed algorithm that solves the problem despite an arbitrary number of mobility faults. The algorithm guarantees mutual visibility for the non-faulty robots, respects the movement budget of every robot, provides collision-free movements for the robots, and uses only 12 light colors.

Problem

• Mutual Visibility
• Autonomous Mobile Robots
• Mobility Fault Model
• Movement Budget
• Distributed Algorithm

Innovation

• Mutual Visibility
• Mobility Fault Model
• Budget-Constrained
• Luminous Robots
• Distributed Algorithm