Swarm robotics and minimalism

Abstract

Swarm Robotics (SR) is closely related to Swarm Intelligence, and both were initially inspired by studies of social insects. Their guiding principles are based on their biological inspiration and take the form of an emphasis on decentralised local control and communication. Earlier studies went a step further in emphasising the use of simple reactive robots that only communicate indirectly through the environment. More recently SR studies have moved beyond these constraints to explore the use of non-reactive robots that communicate directly, and that can learn and represent their environment. There is no clear agreement in the literature about how far such extensions of the original principles could go. Should there be any limitations on the individual abilities of the robots used in SR studies? Should knowledge of the capabilities of social insects lead to constraints on the capabilities of individual robots in SR studies? There is a lack of explicit discussion of such questions and researchers have adopted a variety of constraints for a variety of reasons. A simple taxonomy of swarm robotics is presented here with the aim of addressing and clarifying these questions. The taxonomy distinguishes sub-areas of SR based on the emphases and justifications for minimalism and individual simplicity.

Robots, insects and swarm intelligence

“…There are some questions about how such research should be incorporated into swarm robotics, and about the extent to which swarm robotics should continue to emphasise the simplicity of the individual robots in a swarm. These questions are considered in greater detail elsewhere (Sharkey 2007), together with a suggested separation of swarm robotics into sub-areas depending on researchers' concerns and motivations with respect to biological plausibility. For those interested in the biological plausibility of swarm robotics, a greater understanding of social insects can be used to justify the incorporation of further abilities such as the ability to learn a route to a location, or the use of simple direct communication to get robots to switch tasks, or to indicate the need to move to a new location.…”

Analysis of emergent symmetry breaking in collective decision making

“…For example, models of y-bridge experiments with ants [26][27][28] or aggregation behavior in cockroaches [9]. In all these works, the investigated insects operate on pheromones and take discrete decisions between several sources or shelters.…”

“…This is most likely due to the availability of global communication in standard robotic approaches that allow an easy implementation of aggregation behaviors. In nature-inspired minimalist swarm robotics [28] only local communication is available or allowed making aggregation a much harder task. Two approaches are distinguished: nature-inspired control algorithms [14,16,29,30] and nature-mimicking applications of swarm robotics [31,32].…”

BuPiGo: An Open and Extensible Platform for Visually-Guided Swarm Robots

“…ants and bees) provide the key inspiration that effective collective behaviour can be achieved without hierarchical organization and without access to global information. There exists a common assumption that these insects are individually quite simplistic, and that the capabilities of the units in a robot swarm should be similarly restricted [15]. Indeed, the predominant trend is to utilize coarse, range-limited sensors, such as infrared distance sensors and contact switches, and to insist on a purely reactive control architecture.…”