Towards Decentralized Formation of Minimum-Length Communication Networks Using Robot Swarms

Published October 7, 2026 · Category: Robotics

Overview

arXiv:2610.07320v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Multi-robot missions in infrastructure-denied environments frequently rely on reliable communication links between spatially separated locations. We propose a fully decentralized framework for constructing and dynamically maintaining communication networks without centralized topology planning or global positioning infrastructure. Driven strictly by local interactions, robots reconfigure local network topologies and adjust their physical positions to minimize overall network length while adhering to communication constraints. Formal analysis shows that our local reconfiguration operations guarantee continuous network connectivity, strictly decrease network length with every branch transfer, and bound worst-case performance to the shortest starlike tree. Embodied simulations and physical multi-robot experiments confirm that our approach forms networks near the length of centrally computed Euclidean Steiner trees. Additionally, the system dynamically adapts to moving targets and optimizes deployment by utilizing only necessary connectors, preserving excess robots for auxiliary tasks. This work enables autonomous swarms to self-organize adaptive ad hoc communication infrastructure in communication-denied environments, which could support applications varying from subterranean exploration to planetary missions.

Source

Originally published at arxiv.org.

Related Articles

• Does a Learned Corrector Beat a Simple Retreat? Evidence from a Frozen VLA
• Sim-to-Real Transfer of Vision-Language Navigation in Continuous Environments Using an Ackermann-Steered Mobile Robot
• MRPilot: Supervising and Intervening LLM-Based Multi-Robot Teams through Mixed Reality