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A self-adaptive communication strategy for flocking in stationary and non-stationary environments

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Abstract

We propose a self-adaptive communication strategy for controlling the heading direction of a swarm of mobile robots during flocking. We consider the problem where a small group of informed robots has to guide a large swarm along a desired direction. We consider three versions of this problem: one where the desired direction is fixed; one where the desired direction changes over time; one where a second group of informed robots has information about a second desired direction that conflicts with the first one, but has higher priority. The goal of the swarm is to follow, at all times, the desired direction that has the highest priority and, at the same time, to keep cohesion. The proposed strategy allows the informed robots to guide the swarm when only one desired direction is present. Additionally, a self-adaptation mechanism allows the robots to indirectly sense the second desired direction, and makes the swarm follow it. In experiments with both simulated and real robots, we evaluate how well the swarm tracks the desired direction and how well it maintains cohesion. We show that, using self-adaptive communication, the swarm is able to follow the desired direction with the highest priority at all times without splitting.

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Notes

  1. The body-fixed reference frame is right-handed and fixed to the center of a robot: its x-axis points to the front of the robot and its y-axis is coincident with the rotation axis of the wheels.

  2. Swarmanoid project, http://www.swarmanoid.org/ (February 2013).

  3. Carlo Pinciroli, The ARGoS Website, http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/argos/ (February 2013).

  4. Chipmunk-physics - Fast and lightweight 2D rigid body physics library in C - Google Project Hosting, http://code.google.com/p/chipmunk-physics/ (February 2013).

  5. Note that such hats are used for tracking purposes only and are not detectable by the robot themselves.

  6. http://www.halcon.de/.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the European Union through the ERC Advanced Grant “E-SWARM: Engineering Swarm Intelligence Systems” (contract 246939) and the Future and Emerging Technologies project ASCENS and by the Vlaanderen Research Foundation Flanders (Flemish Community of Belgium) through the H2Swarm project. The information provided is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not reflect the European Commission’s opinion. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that might be made of data appearing in this publication. Mauro Birattari, and Marco Dorigo acknowledge support from the F.R.S.-FNRS of Belgium’s French Community, of which they are a Research Associate and a Research Director, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRIDIA, CoDE, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 50 Av. Franklin Roosevelt CP 194/6, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Eliseo Ferrante, Alessandro Stranieri, Carlo Pinciroli, Mauro Birattari & Marco Dorigo

  2. Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 59 Naamsestraat—Bus 2466, 3000, Louvain, Belgium

    Eliseo Ferrante

  3. Mechatronics Department, THK University, Turkkusu Campus, 06790, Etimesgut, Ankara, Turkey

    Ali Emre Turgut

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of Paderborn, Zukunftsmeile 1, 33102, Paderborn, Germany

    Marco Dorigo

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  1. Eliseo Ferrante
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Correspondence to Eliseo Ferrante.

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Ferrante, E., Turgut, A.E., Stranieri, A. et al. A self-adaptive communication strategy for flocking in stationary and non-stationary environments. Nat Comput 13, 225–245 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-013-9390-9

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