Comparison of bio-inspired algorithms applied to the coordination of mobile robots considering the energy consumption

Many applications, related to autonomous mobile robots, require to explore in an unknown environment searching for static targets, without any a priori information about the environment topology and target locations. Targets in such rescue missions can be fire, mines, human victims, or dangerous material that the robots have to handle. In these scenarios, some cooperation among the robots is required for accomplishing the mission. This paper focuses on the application of different bio-inspired metaheuristics for the coordination of a swarm of mobile robots that have to explore an unknown area in order to rescue and handle cooperatively some distributed targets. This problem is formulated by first defining an optimization model and then considering two sub-problems: exploration and recruiting. Firstly, the environment is incrementally explored by robots using a modified version of ant colony optimization. Then, when a robot detects a target, a recruiting mechanism is carried out to recruit a certain number of robots to deal with the found target together. For this latter purpose, we have proposed and compared three approaches based on three different bio-inspired algorithms (Firefly Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, and Artificial Bee Algorithm). A computational study and extensive simulations have been carried out to assess the behavior of the proposed approaches and to analyze their performance in terms of total energy consumed by the robots to complete the mission. Simulation results indicate that the firefly-based strategy usually provides superior performance and can reduce the wastage of energy, especially in complex scenarios

Comparison of bio-inspired algorithms applied to the coordination of mobile robots considering the energy consumption

Many applications, related to autonomous mobile robots, require to explore in an unknown environment searching for static targets, without any a priori information about the environment topology and target locations. Targets in such rescue missions can be fire, mines, human victims, or dangerous material that the robots have to handle. In these scenarios, some cooperation among the robots is required for accomplishing the mission. This paper focuses on the application of different bio-inspired metaheuristics for the coordination of a swarm of mobile robots that have to explore an unknown area in order to rescue and handle cooperatively some distributed targets. This problem is formulated by first defining an optimization model and then considering two sub-problems: exploration and recruiting. Firstly, the environment is incrementally explored by robots using a modified version of ant colony optimization. Then, when a robot detects a target, a recruiting mechanism is carried out to recruit a certain number of robots to deal with the found target together. For this latter purpose, we have proposed and compared three approaches based on three different bio-inspired algorithms (Firefly Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, and Artificial Bee Algorithm). A computational study and extensive simulations have been carried out to assess the behavior of the proposed approaches and to analyze their performance in terms of total energy consumed by the robots to complete the mission. Simulation results indicate that the firefly-based strategy usually provides superior performance and can reduce the wastage of energy, especially in complex scenarios

Self-adaptive decision-making mechanisms to balance the execution of multiple tasks for a multi-robots team

This work addresses the coordination problem of multiple robots with the goal of finding specific hazardous targets in an unknown area and dealing with them cooperatively. The desired behaviour for the robotic system entails multiple requirements, which may also be conflicting. The paper presents the problem as a constrained bi-objective optimization problem in which mobile robots must perform two specific tasks of exploration and at same time cooperation and coordination for disarming the hazardous targets. These objectives are opposed goals, in which one may be favored, but only at the expense of the other. Therefore, a good trade-off must be found. For this purpose, a nature-inspired approach and an analytical mathematical model to solve this problem considering a single equivalent weighted objective function are presented. The results of proposed coordination model, simulated in a two dimensional terrain, are showed in order to assess the behaviour of the proposed solution to tackle this problem. We have analyzed the performance of the approach and the influence of the weights of the objective function under different conditions: static and dynamic. In this latter situation, the robots may fail under the stringent limited budget of energy or for hazardous events. The paper concludes with a critical discussion of the experimental results

Intelligent Robotics Navigation System: Problems, Methods, and Algorithm

This paper set out to supplement new studies with a brief and comprehensible review of the advanced development in the area of the navigation system, starting from a single robot, multi-robot, and swarm robots from a particular perspective by taking insights from these biological systems. The inspiration is taken from nature by observing the human and the social animal that is believed to be very beneficial for this purpose. The intelligent navigation system is developed based on an individual characteristic or a social animal biological structure. The discussion of this paper will focus on how simple agent’s structure utilizes flexible and potential outcomes in order to navigate in a productive and unorganized surrounding. The combination of the navigation system and biologically inspired approach has attracted considerable attention, which makes it an important research area in the intelligent robotic system. Overall, this paper explores the implementation, which is resulted from the simulation performed by the embodiment of robots operating in real environments

Swarm robotics in wireless distributed protocol design for coordinating robots involved in cooperative tasks

The mine detection in an unexplored area is an optimization problem where multiple mines, randomly distributed throughout an area, need to be discovered and disarmed in a minimum amount of time. We propose a strategy to explore an unknown area, using a stigmergy approach based on ants behavior, and a novel swarm based protocol to recruit and coordinate robots for disarming the mines cooperatively. Simulation tests are presented to show the effectiveness of our proposed Ant-based Task Robot Coordination (ATRC) with only the exploration task and with both exploration and recruiting strategies. Multiple minimization objectives have been considered: the robots' recruiting time and the overall area exploration time. We discuss, through simulation, different cases under different network and field conditions, performed by the robots. The results have shown that the proposed decentralized approaches enable the swarm of robots to perform cooperative tasks intelligently without any central control

Bioinspired approaches for coordination and behaviour adaptation of aerial robot swarms

Behavioural adaptation is a pervasive component in a myriad of animal societies. A well-known strategy, known as Levy Walk, has been commonly linked to such adaptation in foraging animals, where the motion of individuals couples periods of localized search and long straight forward motions. Despite the vast number of studies on Levy Walks in computational ecology, it was only in the past decade that the first studies applied this concept to robotics tasks. Therefore, this Thesis draws inspiration from the Levy Walk behaviour, and its recent applications to robotics, to design biologically inspired models for two swarm robotics tasks, aiming at increasing the performance with respect to the state of the art. The first task is cooperative surveillance, where the aim is to deploy a swarm so that at any point in time regions of the domain are observed by multiple robots simultaneously. One of the contributions of this Thesis, is the Levy Swarm Algorithm that augments the concept of Levy Walk to include the Reynolds’ flocking rules and achieve both exploration and coordination in a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles. The second task is adaptive foraging in environments of clustered rewards. In such environments behavioural adaptation is of paramount importance to modulate the transition between exploitation and exploration. Nature enables these adaptive changes by coupling the behaviour to the fluctuation of hormones that are mostly regulated by the endocrine system. This Thesis draws further inspiration from Nature and proposes a second model, the Endocrine Levy Walk, that employs an Artificial Endocrine System as a modulating mechanism of Levy Walk behaviour. The Endocrine Levy Walk is compared with the Yuragi model (Nurzaman et al., 2010), in both simulated and physical experiments where it shows its increased performance in terms of search efficiency, energy efficiency and number of rewards found. The Endocrine Levy Walk is then augmented to consider social interactions between members of the swarm by mimicking the behaviour of fireflies, where individuals attract others when finding suitable environmental conditions. This extended model, the Endocrine Levy Firefly, is compared to the Levy+ model (Sutantyo et al., 2013) and the Adaptive Collective Levy Walk Nauta et al. (2020). This comparison is also made both in simulated and physical experiments and assessed in terms of search efficiency, number of rewards found and cluster search efficiency, strengthening the argument in favour of the Endocrine Levy Firefly as a promising approach to tackle collaborative foragin

Exploiting semantic knowledge in swarm robotic systems for target searching

Robotic systems have long been used for search and rescue tasks in hazardous environments. The prevailing solutions which utilize delicate units for sensing and positioning show their reliance on globalized information when multiple robots are deployed. To employ multiple robots (especially swarm robots in this thesis) in a searching task, the local perceptual ability and local communication range demand a new strategy for environmental information recording and exchanging, to promote searching efficiencies of the robots. This thesis presents a semantic knowledge-based mechanism for environmental information storage and communication in swarm robotic systems. Human expert knowledge about the environment can be utilized by such a mechanism for promoting searching efficiency. Robots without the knowledge provided in advance could learn knowledge in a task-oriented way, and help other robots in the swarm find the target faster by sharing the knowledge