Testing the limits of pheromone stigmergy in high-density robot swarms.

ABSTRACT: Area coverage and collective exploration are key challenges for swarm robotics. Previous research in this field has drawn inspiration from ant colonies, with real, or more commonly virtual, pheromones deposited into a shared environment to coordinate behaviour through stigmergy. Repellent pheromones can facilitate rapid dispersal of robotic agents, yet this has been demonstrated only for relatively small swarm sizes (N < 30). Here, we report findings from swarms of real robots (Kilobots) an order of magnitude larger (N > 300) and from realistic simulation experiments up to N = 400. We identify limitations to stigmergy in a spatially constrained, high-density environment-a free but bounded two-dimensional workspace-using repellent binary pheromone. At larger N an

SUBMITTER: Hunt ER 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6894587 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature