Exploratory Performance Analysis of Microbot Swarm in Three-Dimensional Field

Abstract

In the last decade, research and development of microbots, whose sizes are in the range between a few millimeters to centimeters, have been actively performed. One of promising applications of microbots is survivor discovery in disaster areas. Contrary to high expectations to many microbot applications, in the literature, exploratory performance with microbots and requirements on microbot functionalities have not been fully discussed. In this paper, we therefore analyze the exploratory performance of microbot swarm (i.e., A great number of autonomous and independent microbot) in a three-dimensional field where every microbot independently searches for target objects. We derive the target discovery ratio as well as the optimal dropping avoidance probability of microbots, with which each microbot probabilistically prevents itself to fall onto the lower layer using an edge-detection sensor. Moreover, through several numerical examples, we investigate how the exploratory performance of microbot swarm is affected by several system parameters such as the number of microbots, the area of a layer, the density of openings in the layer, and the dropping avoidance probability a microbot.