Manuele Brambilla, Carlo Pinciroli, Mauro Birattari, and Marco Dorigo
October 2011
This page contains all supplementary information that was not possible to included in the paper. Table of Contents |
In this paper, we propose a novel top-down design method for the development of collective behaviors of swarm robotics systems called property-driven design. Swarm robotics systems are usually designed and developed using a code-and-fix approach, that is, the developer devises, tests and modify the individual robot behaviors until a desired collective behavior is obtained. The code-and-fix approach can be very time consuming and relies completely on the ingenuity and expertise of the designer. The idea of property-driven design is that a swarm robotics system can be described by specifying formally a set of desired properties. In an iterative process similar to test-driven development, the developer produces a model of the system that satisfies the desired properties. Subsequently, the system is implemented in simulation and using real robots. Property-driven design can help to reduce the design and development time. Moreover, this approach to minimize the risk of developing a system that does not satisfy the required properties, and to promote the reuse of hardware-independent models. In this paper, we start by giving a general description of the method. We then present a possible way to apply it by using Discrete Time Markov Chains (DTMC) and Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic* (PCTL*). Finally, we conclude by presenting the application of the proposed method to the design and development of a swarm robotics system performing aggregation.
Keywords: Swarm robotics, Swarm engineering, Top-down design, Aggregation
All the simulated experiments have been performed using the ARGoS simulator. All videos are in real time.
The real robots experiments have been performed using the e-puck robot. All videos are in real time.
Simulation video with 10 robots.
Simulation video with 20 robots.