Swarm Manager: SDN-Inspired Computation Offloading Management in Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Networks
Matteo Palieri, Antonello Longo, Cataldo Guaragnella · 2024
We present Swarm Manager, a novel distributed computation framework to augment perception accuracy of computationally-constrained platforms in heterogeneous multi-robot systems. The proposed approach exploits computation offloading and software defined networking allowing robots to offload heavy computation (e.g. lidar odometry, object detection) to other more resourceful peers in the team following the decisions of a globally-aware and dynamically-eligible central orchestrator. We demonstrate in simulation enhancements in the perception accuracy of a computationally-constrained platform belonging to an heterogeneous team of four autonomous robots involved in the exploration of a multi-level, GPS-denied and communication-constrained unfinished power plant, gathering real-world data from the Urban Circuit of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge.