This work investigates how wireless signal attenuation affects a team of mobile robots performing exploration. Many coverage tasks, such as search and rescue or exploration, can be performed more effectively when robots communicate with one other. However, in real world environments, maintaining communication can be difficult due to unpredictable wireless signal propagation. In this paper, we investigate the wireless network connectivity in an outdoor area that consist of concrete wall and pillars. Preliminary simulation and physical experimental results are compared to demonstrate the effects of signal attenuation on robot team performance.

In cooperative robot teams, communications can speed up execution, reduce duplication, and prevent interference. Although many systems use explicit communications, persistent intra-team digital communications is not guaranteed. One approach to this challenge is to use implicit communication to infer state rather than using digital messages. We investigate using implicit communication in the form of observation to infer state to coordinate a robot team in a coverage task. We demonstrate how pruning and backtracking a search tree can improve multi-robot coverage. Experiments were conducted to compare team performance of a robot team using observation-based cooperation to one that uses explicit communications.