Repository logo

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
  1. Home
  2. Academic and Research Output
  3. Journal articles
  4. Artificial pheromone for path selection by a foraging swarm of robots
 
research article

Artificial pheromone for path selection by a foraging swarm of robots

Campo, Alexandre
•
Gutierrez, Alvaro
•
Nouyan, Shervin
Show more
2010
Biological Cybernetics

Foraging robots involved in a search and retrieval task may create paths to navigate faster in their environment. In this context, a swarm of robots that has found several resources and created different paths may benefit strongly from path selection. Path selection enhances the foraging behavior by allowing the swarm to focus on the most profitable resource with the possibility for unused robots to stop participating in the path maintenance and to switch to another task. In order to achieve path selection, we implement virtual ants that lay artificial pheromone inside a network of robots. Virtual ants are local messages transmitted by robots; they travel along chains of robots and deposit artificial pheromone on the robots that are literally forming the chain and indicating the path. The concentration of artificial pheromone on the robots allows them to decide whether they are part of a selected path. We parameterize the mechanism with a mathematical model and provide an experimental validation using a swarm of 20 real robots. We show that our mechanism favors the selection of the closest resource is able to select a new path if a selected resource becomes unavailable and selects a newly detected and better resource when possible. As robots use very simple messages and behaviors, the system would be particularly well suited for swarms of microrobots with minimal abilities.

  • Details
  • Metrics
Type
research article
DOI
10.1007/s00422-010-0402-x
Web of Science ID

WOS:000284507700001

Author(s)
Campo, Alexandre
Gutierrez, Alvaro
Nouyan, Shervin
Pinciroli, Carlo
Longchamp, Valentin  
Garnier, Simon
Dorigo, Marco
Date Issued

2010

Published in
Biological Cybernetics
Volume

103

Start page

339

End page

352

Subjects

Swarm robotics

•

Path selection

•

Artificial pheromone

•

Communication

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LSRO  
Available on Infoscience
December 16, 2011
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/74977
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
  • Contact
  • infoscience@epfl.ch

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on X
  • Follow us on Youtube
AccessibilityLegal noticePrivacy policyCookie settingsEnd User AgreementGet helpFeedback

Infoscience is a service managed and provided by the Library and IT Services of EPFL. © EPFL, tous droits réservés