Muhammad Salman,
Antoine Ligot,
Mauro Birattari,
IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
We consider some hypothetical hardware modules that enable a robot to detect and locate its neighboring peers. These hypothetical modules are based on infrared transceivers and are variants of an existing hardware module for the e-puck platform known as the range-&-bearing. We define the set of these hypothetical modules so that some of them are more-capable and some are less-capable than the existing one in terms of perception range and detection abilities. We assume that the more capable hardware modules are more expensive and consume more power. These hypothetical modules are realistic and possibly implementable. The technical specification of each range-&-bearing is available to download here:
We also present here two scenarios to determine the aggregate position vector V.
The instances of control software, hardware configuration, and the prominent behaviors of all experiments are available for download here:
The swarm must select one of the two black areas and aggregate there. The objective function is computed at every control step, and is maximum when all robots spend maximum time on one zone.
NC |
M80 |
M60 |
P20 |
P15 |
M80 P20 |
M80 P15 |
M60 P20 |
M60 P15 |
The swarm must select one of the two black zones and aggregate there. The objective function is computed at the end of the experimental run, and is maximized when all robots are on one zone.
NC |
M80 |
M60 |
P20 |
P15 |
M80 P20 |
M80 P15 |
M60 P20 |
M60 P15 |
The arena contains two source areas (black circles) and a nest (white area). A light is placed behind the nest to help the robots to navigate. In this idealized version of foraging, a robot is deemed to retrieve an object when it enters a source and then the nest. The goal of the swarm is to retrieve as many objects as possible.
NC |
M80 |
M60 |
P20 |
P15 |
M80 P20 |
M80 P15 |
M60 P20 |
M60 P15 |