We present a new multi-robot system as a means of creating a visual communication cue that can add dynamic illustration to static figures or diagrams to enhance the power of delivery and improve an audience's attention. The proposed idea is that when a presenter/speaker writes something such as a shape or letter on a whiteboard table, multiple mobile robots trace the shape or letter while dynamically expressing it. The dynamic movement of multi-robots will further stimulate the cognitive perception of the audience with handwriting, positively affecting the comprehension of content. To do this, we apply image processing algorithms to extract feature points from a handwritten shape or letter while a task allocation algorithm deploys multi-robots on the feature points to highlight the shape or letter. We present preliminary experiment results that verify the proposed system with various characters and letters such as the English alphabet.

In multi-agent systems, limited resources must be shared by individuals during missions to maximize the group utility of the system in the field. In this paper, we present a generalized adaptive self-organization process for multi-agent systems featuring fast and efficient distribution of a consumable and refillable on-board resource throughout the group. An adaptive inter-agent spacing (AIS) controller based on individual resource levels is proposed that spaces out high resource bearing agents throughout the group including the group boundary extrema, and allows low resource bearing agents to adaptively occupy the in-between spaces receiving resource from the high resource bearing agents without over-crowding. Experimental results for cases with and without the proposed AIS controller validate faster convergence of individual resource levels to the group mean resource level using the proposed AIS controller. The generalized approach of the self-organizing process allows flexibility in adapting the proposed AIS controller for various multi-agent applications.

Object carrying by a multi-robot group of spherical robots is a versatile object transportation strategy compared to the traditional grasping, pushing or caging methods proposed in literature. In this paper we address the fundamental problem of multi-robot allocation for object carrying by a group of spherical robots. A grid-based cyclic robot allocation (GCRA) method for spherical robots is proposed along with specific stability criterion, that designs the grid size parameters and identifies the minimum number of robots required based on the arbitrary shape of a given object for stable omni-directional translation of the object on a planar surface. An analytical proof of the proposed cyclic robot allocation method is shown verifying stability of the transportation process. Experimental results of robot allocation using GCRA for several arbitrary shapes validate the proposed method.