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Autonomic Cooperation Strategies for Robot Swarms

Authors:
Catherine Saunders
Roy Sterritt
George Wilkie

Keywords: Robot; Autonomic Computing; Swarm; Simulation; Cooperation;

Abstract:
In this paper, we describe two strategies that allow a swarm of simulated robots to cooperate. For a swarm of robots to function cooperatively, self-management and autonomy are essential. Direct communication is used to enable swarm entities to communicate. The research aim is to evaluate various architectures and protocols for cooperation strategies that enable swarm robots to ask for, and respond to requests for assistance. The work is in two phases. Only phase 1 is described in this paper. The first phase involves the creation of simulation environments of robot swarms. This phase enables us to develop, evaluate and refine suitable architectures and protocols for swarm cooperation. Using simulation, it is possible to assess swarm cooperation in the large (essentially hundreds or thousands of robots per swarm). In the second phase, the cooperation protocols developed from phase 1 will be trialed on a small number of physical robots, to evaluate the complexity introduced from the real world. The 1st architecture simulated features a hierarchy with Ruler robots communicating with a swarm; the Ruler robots can request the help of the swarm. The swarm is only able to respond to the Rulers, intra-swarm communication is not possible. In the 2nd architecture simulated, a non-hierarchical homogenous swarm is able to communicate by posting help messages to a centralized Message Board entity. In future experiments, architectures involving the incorporation of a Message Board role within each swarm robot, thus removing the disadvantages associated with having a centralized component, will be explored.

Pages: 20 to 26

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2016

Publication date: March 20, 2016

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4146

ISBN: 978-1-61208-463-3

Location: Rome, Italy

Dates: from March 20, 2016 to March 24, 2016