Sweep strategies for a sensory-driven, behavior-based vacuum cleaning agent

In the Machine Intelligence Laboratory, University of Florida, we have built a small autonomous robot and programmietd to exhibit various reactive behaviors.T he robot, namedG ator,p erformsa rea coveragein an interior room by combining distinct behaviors. Gator has 26 sensors of which only 7 are used in the coverage algorithmse xaminedh ere. Gator's behaviorsa llow it to avoid obstacles, follow walls, seek open areas and break out of confined areas. In the limited number of experiments performed here it appears that the best coverage algorithm among those tried consisted of a randomw alk with a probability of 0.05 for following a wall after each encounter with an obstacle. After 20 minutes about 85% of the floor space was covered with an efficiency close to 85%.