TY - GEN
T1 - Distributed colony-level algorithm switching for robot swarm foraging
AU - Hoff, Nicholas
AU - Wood, Robert
AU - Nagpal, Radhika
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Swarm robotics utilizes a large number of simple robots to accomplish a task, instead of a single complex robot. Communications constraints often force these systems to be distributed and leaderless, placing restrictions on the types of algorithms which can be executed by the swarm. The performance of a swarm algorithm is affected by the environment in which the swarm operates. Different environments may call for different algorithms to be chosen, but often no single robot has enough information to make this decision. In this paper, we focus on foraging as a multi-robot task and present two distributed foraging algorithms, each of which performs best for different food locations. We then present a third adaptive algorithm in which the swarm as a whole is able to choose the best algorithm for the given situation by combining individual-level and distributed colony-level algorithm switching. We show that this adaptive method combines the benefits of the other methods, and yields the best overall performance.
AB - Swarm robotics utilizes a large number of simple robots to accomplish a task, instead of a single complex robot. Communications constraints often force these systems to be distributed and leaderless, placing restrictions on the types of algorithms which can be executed by the swarm. The performance of a swarm algorithm is affected by the environment in which the swarm operates. Different environments may call for different algorithms to be chosen, but often no single robot has enough information to make this decision. In this paper, we focus on foraging as a multi-robot task and present two distributed foraging algorithms, each of which performs best for different food locations. We then present a third adaptive algorithm in which the swarm as a whole is able to choose the best algorithm for the given situation by combining individual-level and distributed colony-level algorithm switching. We show that this adaptive method combines the benefits of the other methods, and yields the best overall performance.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84870743207&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-32723-0_30
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-32723-0_30
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84870743207
SN - 9783642327223
T3 - Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics
SP - 417
EP - 430
BT - Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems - The 10th International Symposium, DARS 2010
T2 - 10th International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems, DARS 2010
Y2 - 1 November 2010 through 3 November 2010
ER -