Specialization and generalization of robot behaviour in swarm energy foraging

Abstract

Energy supply is one of the most serious problems for micro-mechatronic devices. For collective systems, such as sensor networks or swarms of autonomous micro-robots, collective energy management is especially hard. This work describes a kinetic model of energy foraging and an application of bio-inspired harvesting behaviour to a real robot swarm. The heuristic strategy derived allows proper collective management of energy resources without using global knowledge and guarantees a good swarm efficiency. Despite the whole swarm having the same behavioural rules, some robots specialize in only a few foraging activities, whereas others are more universal in their behaviour. Such emergence of 'specialists' and 'generalists' is observed in animal groups and can indicate common behavioural principles underlying natural and artificial systems.

Information Exchange Design Patterns for Robot Swarm Foraging and Their Application in Robot Control Algorithms

“…• Leads to a low information gain rate, which is why information about worksites needs to be relatively easy to find (Pitonakova et al, 2018) • Minimises displacement and misinformation costs (Pitonakova et al, 2018) • The spread of robots across worksites only depends on their scouting movement pattern. For example, an even spread across the environment may be achieved when robots utilise random walk (Sugawara and Watanabe, 2002;Kernbach et al, 2012;Pitonakova et al, 2018) • Prevents the spread of erroneous information among robots (Pitonakova et al, 2014) 4.1.9. Known Uses Often used when simple foraging algorithms are needed as a basis for robot behaviour, while other swarm behaviours, such as selfregulation or task-allocation, are explored (Krieger and Billeter, 2000;Labella et al, 2006;Lerman et al, 2006; Campo and Dorigo, 2007; Kernbach et al, 2012).…”

Encoder-free odometric system for autonomous microrobots

“…It also provides four channels for further sensors/actuators. The robot uses an advanced power management system, with a Li-Po accumulator, which provides for 1.5 h of autonomous work and the capability for autonomous docking to the power station and auto-recharging [16,14].…”

“…This functionality is necessary for, for example, trophallaxis [30], foraging [16], and behavioral or other bio-inspired spatial approaches. Developing an odometric system for a microrobot that combines acceptable accuracy, low cost and small size represents a serious challenge.…”

Application of Artificial Capital Market in Task Allocation in Multi-robot Foraging

“…The reason is that foraging comprises some interesting and sophisticated sub-problems such as energy efficiency [2][3][4][5][6] , path and motion planning [7][8][9][10][11][12] , coordination 10,[13][14][15][16] , communication [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] , optimization 3, 7-9, 26-31 and task allocation [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] . Although in most cases these sub-problems are not completely independent, there have been a focus on a particular sub-problem in different researches in swarm robotics field.…”