Towards adaptive multi-robot systems: self-organization and self-adaptation

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The development of complex systems ensembles that operate in uncertain environments is a major challenge. The reason for this is that system designers are not able to fully specify the system during specification and development and before it is being deployed. Natural swarm systems enjoy similar characteristics, yet, being self-adaptive and being able to self-organize, these systems show beneficial emergent behaviour. Similar concepts can be extremely helpful for artificial systems, especially when it comes to multi-robot scenarios, which require such solution in order to be applicable to highly uncertain real world application. In this article, we present a comprehensive overview over state-of-the-art solutions in emergent systems, self-organization, self-adaptation, and robotics. We discuss these approaches in the light of a framework for multi-robot systems and identify similarities, differences missing links and open gaps that have to be addressed in order to make this framework possible

Background, Systematic Review, Challenges and Outlook

Publisher Copyright: © 2013 IEEE. This research is supported by the Digital Manufacturing and Design Training Network (DiManD) project funded by the European Union through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018) under grant agreement no. 814078The concept of smart manufacturing has attracted huge attention in the last years as an answer to the increasing complexity, heterogeneity, and dynamism of manufacturing ecosystems. This vision embraces the notion of autonomous and self-organized elements, capable of self-management and self-decision-making under a context-aware and intelligent infrastructure. While dealing with dynamic and uncertain environments, these solutions are also contributing to generating social impact and introducing sustainability into the industrial equation thanks to the development of task-specific resources that can be easily adapted, re-used, and shared. A lot of research under the context of self-organization in smart manufacturing has been produced in the last decade considering different methodologies and developed under different contexts. Most of these works are still in the conceptual or experimental stage and have been developed under different application scenarios. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate their design principles and potentiate their results. The objective of this paper is threefold. First, to introduce the main ideas behind self-organization in smart manufacturing. Then, through a systematic literature review, describe the current status in terms of technological and implementation details, mechanisms used, and some of the potential future research directions. Finally, the presentation of an outlook that summarizes the main results of this work and their interrelation to facilitate the development of self-organized manufacturing solutions. By providing a holistic overview of the field, we expect that this work can be used by academics and practitioners as a guide to generate awareness of possible requirements, industrial challenges, and opportunities that future self-organizing solutions can have towards a smart manufacturing transition.publishersversionpublishe

The idea of evolution in digital architecture: Toward united ontologies?

Humans have always sought to grasp nature’s working principles and apply acquired intelligence to artefacts since nature has always been the source of inspiration, solution and creativity. For this reason, there is a comprehensive interrelationship between the philosophy of nature and architecture. After Charles Darwin’s revolutionary work, living beings have started to be comprehended as changing, evolving and developing dynamic entities. Evolution theory has been accepted as the interpretive power of biology after several discussions and objections among scientists. In time, the working principles of evolutionary mechanisms have begun to be explained from genetic code to organism and environmental level. Afterwards, simulating nature’s evolutionary logic in the digital interface has become achievable with computational systems’ advancements. Ultimately, architects have begun to utilise evolutionary understanding in design theories and methodologies through computational procedures since the 1990s. Although several studies about technical and pragmatic elements of evolutionary tools in design, there is still little research on the historical, theoretical and philosophical foundations of evolutionary understanding in digital architecture. This paper fills this literature gap by critically reviewing the evolutionary understanding embedded in digital architecture theories and designs since the beginning of the 1990s. The original contribution is the proposed intellectual framework seeking to understand and conceptualise how evolutionary processes were defined in biology and philosophy, then represented through computational procedures, to be finally utilised by architectural designers. The network of references and concepts is deeply connected with the communication between natural processes and their computational simulations. For this reason, another original contribution is the utilisation of theoretical limits and operative principles of computation procedures to shed light on the limitations, shortcomings and potentials of design theories regarding their speculations on the relationship between natural and computational ontologies

Artificial Collective Intelligence Engineering: a Survey of Concepts and Perspectives

Collectiveness is an important property of many systems--both natural and artificial. By exploiting a large number of individuals, it is often possible to produce effects that go far beyond the capabilities of the smartest individuals, or even to produce intelligent collective behaviour out of not-so-intelligent individuals. Indeed, collective intelligence, namely the capability of a group to act collectively in a seemingly intelligent way, is increasingly often a design goal of engineered computational systems--motivated by recent techno-scientific trends like the Internet of Things, swarm robotics, and crowd computing, just to name a few. For several years, the collective intelligence observed in natural and artificial systems has served as a source of inspiration for engineering ideas, models, and mechanisms. Today, artificial and computational collective intelligence are recognised research topics, spanning various techniques, kinds of target systems, and application domains. However, there is still a lot of fragmentation in the research panorama of the topic within computer science, and the verticality of most communities and contributions makes it difficult to extract the core underlying ideas and frames of reference. The challenge is to identify, place in a common structure, and ultimately connect the different areas and methods addressing intelligent collectives. To address this gap, this paper considers a set of broad scoping questions providing a map of collective intelligence research, mostly by the point of view of computer scientists and engineers. Accordingly, it covers preliminary notions, fundamental concepts, and the main research perspectives, identifying opportunities and challenges for researchers on artificial and computational collective intelligence engineering.Comment: This is the author's final version of the article, accepted for publication in the Artificial Life journal. Data: 34 pages, 2 figure

Boosting co-creation practices in makespaces to support the design of more empowering and circular food systems at a neighbourhood scale

International audienceThe Fab Lab network is newly engaged in several projects that involve the idea of rethinking sustainability, re-localizing manufacturing and promoting a collaborative learning culture. Fab Labs, as makespaces, are now perceived as key spaces for actively developing practical knowledge and create interactions with local stakeholders toward a more sustainable and redistributed manufacturing. In this respect, makespaces are encouraged to redefine its relationship with the local ecosystem by exploring questions such as: What are the effective interactions with local communities? How to build local interventions for enabling more emerging futures? The paper aims at exploring what could be the role of co-creation in local context actions and what could be the community services developed in collaboration with makespaces for supporting the transition towards more circular cities. The results are based on an ongoing action-research at Fab Lab Barcelona called "El Barri Circular", which is designed in the frame of the EU-SISCODE project 1 as a 18 th month co-creation process about circular practices in the neighbourhood of Poblenou. This pilot has been engaging local stakeholders to create synergies in the specific context of food. The pilot used a set of design and co-creation methodologies to support a transition towards re-valuing surplus food and bio-waste at the neighbourhood scale. Over the project, El Barri Circular has collaborated with local km0 restaurants, cooperatives, local associations, urban gardens, and makers' community and engaged more specifically with three circular community projects connected to the food value chain: food waste redistribution, bio-waste-based material development and collective composting. Four interdependent types of community services for circular systems were imagined, and will now be co-produced and tested at the neighbourhood level: a set of learning and co-designed activities to support the local design and production of dedicated tools, a logistical service for food waste collection-processing and community engagement and an environmental monitoring system that measures the flow of materials, energy and resources in the local food system. The project outputs will be discussed within broader networks and feed a collective handbook that will contribute to envision the design of new circular practices in makespaces and thus, shape new forms of learning in local areas

The solidarity economy alternative and movement: The experience of the United States Solidarity Economy Network (USSEN)

The solidarity economy movement in the US is very recent. While use of this term as a framework for unifying the wide array of people-centred economic concepts and practices started in Canada in the mid- to late 1990s, it only became part of the US lexicon in the mid-2000s (Poirier and Kawano 2009: 145). The US solidarity economy movement took shape with the establishment of the United States Solidarity Economy Network (USSEN) at the First US Social Forum (USSF), held in Atlanta, Georgia, in June 2007. However, it builds on a broad range of pre-existent economic practices, institutions and policies representing alternatives to capitalist production (Allard 2008b). The environmental crisis and the recurring economic turmoil in recent decades have led to a rising interest in these alternatives.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio