CHAPTER 1
 INTRODUCTION

 A variety of research is being done in the area of autonomous mobile robots. Much of

this research involves the development of platforms and integration of computers and

various sensors to create an intelligent robot. With the development of multiple robotic

agents comes an interest in multiple robot interaction. Researchers in this area explore

how robots interact with one another and their surroundings. Different experiments have

been performed in simulation and have been implemented on multiple robot systems [5].

Actual implementation has been on a smaller scale due to cost constraints. Therefore,

simulation plays an invaluable and important role in this type of research. Different

algorithms may be tested in simulation before implementation on a multi-agent system.

 Multiple Robot Positioning and Communication

 This research focuses on a scenario where a mobile robot will operate in an obstacle-

strewn environment and must maintain line-of-sight communication with the operator

control unit. This line-of-sight communication will be facilitated by using mobile

communication repeater robots to chain together a total line-of-sight path from the mobile

robot to the operator control unit. The objective of this research is to determine where to

best position the communication repeater robots to maximize the area of the region in

which the mobile robot can operate while maintaining communication to the operator

control unit. Positioning and placement of multiple communications repeater robots

depends on several factors: the number of robots to be positioned, the size of the