Abstract-The EU-funded CoCoRo project studies heterogeneous swarms of AUVs used for the purposes of underwater monitoring and search. The CoCoRo underwater swarm system will combine bio-inspired motion principles with biologically-derived collective cognition mechanisms to provide a novel robotic system that is scalable, reliable and flexible with respect its behavioural potential. We will investigate and develop swarm-level emergent self-awareness, taking biological inspiration from fish, honeybees, the immune system and neurons. Low-level, local information processing will give rise to collective-level memory and cognition. CoCoRo will develop a novel bio-inspired operating system whose default behaviour will be to provide AUV shoaling functionality and the maintenance of swarm coherence. Collective discrimination of environmental properties will be processed on an individualor on a collective-level given the cognitive capabilities of the AUVs. We will investigate collective self-recognition through experiments inspired by ethology and psychology, allowing for the quantification of collective cognition.

Abstract. In swarm robotics, hundreds or thousands of robots have to reach a common goal autonomously. Usually, the robots are small and their abilities are very limited. The autonomy of the robots requires that the robots' behaviors are purely based on their local perceptions, which are usually rather limited. If the robot swarm is able to join multiple instances of individual perceptions to one big global picture (e.g. to collectively construct a sort of map), then the swarm can perform efficiently and such a swarm can target complex tasks. We here present two approaches to realize 'collective perception' in a robot swarm. Both require only limited abilities in communication and in calculation. We compare these strategies in different environments and evaluate the swarm's performance in simulations of fluctuating environmental conditions and with varying parameter settings.

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Abstract. Underwater exploration is important for mapping out the oceans, environmental monitoring, and search and rescue, yet water represents one of the most challenging of operational environments. The CoCoRo project proposes to address these challenges using cognitive swarm intelligent systems. We present here CoCoRoSim, an underwater swarm robotics simulation used in designing underwater swarm robotic systems. Collective coordination of robots represents principle challenge here, and use simulation in evaluating shoaling algorithm performance given the communication, localization and orientation challenges of underwater environments. We find communication to be essential for well-coordinated shoals, and provided communication is possible, inexact localization does not significantly impact performance. As a proof of concept simulation is employed in evaluating shoaling performance in turbulent waters.

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