A quantitative micro-macro link for collective decisions: the shortest path discovery/selection example

In this paper, we study how to obtain a quantitative correspondence between the dynamics of the microscopic implementation of a robot swarm and the dynamics of a macroscopic model of nest-site selection in honeybees. We do so by considering a collec- tive decision-making case study: the shortest path discovery/selection problem. In this case study, obtaining a quantitative correspondence between the microscopic and macroscopic dynamics-the so-called micro-macro link problem-is particularly challenging because the macroscopic model does not take into account the spatial factors inherent to the path discovery/selection problem. We frame this study in the context of a general engineering methodology that prescribes the inclusion of available theoretical knowledge about target macroscopic models into design patterns for the microscopic implementation. The attain- ment of the micro-macro link presented in this paper represents a necessary step towards the formalisation of a design pattern for collective decision making in distributed systems

Création d'un corpus de traces graphiques de la Langue des Signes Française

International audienceThis work constitutes a contribution to the emergence of a common writing for French Sign Language in a graphical or even a typographical framework. Our hypothesis is as follows : in its execution, the gestural sign contains a readable graphic trace that can be visualized with a photographic device. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, we gather a photographic corpus made of isolated elicited signs.Le projet GestuelScript se présente comme une contribution à l'émergence d'une écriture courante pour la Langue des Signes Française dans un cadre de travail essentiellement graphique, voire typographique. Notre hypothèse : le signe gestuel décrirait, dans sa réalisation, une trace graphique lisible qu'un dispositif photographique permet de visualiser. Pour la tester, nous constituons un corpus de travail photographique fait de signes isolés élicités

Création d’un corpus de traces graphiques de la Langue des Signes française en vue de la constitution d’une écriture

Le projet GestuelScript se présente comme une contribution à l’émergence d’une écriture courante pour la Langue des Signes française dans un cadre de travail essentiellement graphique, voire typographique. Notre hypothèse : le signe gestuel décrirait, dans sa réalisation, une trace graphique lisible qu’un dispositif photographique permet de visualiser. Pour la tester de manière cohérente, nous avons constitué deux corpus de travail photographique fait de signes isolés élicités. Les éléments du corpus correspondent à des prises de vue des signes réalisées en prenant une photographie avec exposition longue, ce qui permet de rendre visible le mouvement parcourus par les mains. Nous présentons dans cet article la méthodologie utilisée pour réaliser ces corpus ainsi que les pistes de recherche qui en ont émergé.This work constitutes a contribution to the emergence of a common writing for French Sign Language in a graphical or even a typographical framework. Our hypothesis is as follows : in its execution, the gestural sign contains a readable graphic trace that can be visualized with a photographic device. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, we gather two photographic corpus made of isolated elicited signs. The atoms of this corpus are pictures taken with long exposure, which gives body to the movement of the hands and renders it. In this article, we present the methodology we used to create both of our corpus and the researches that emerged from them

Balancing Exploitation of Renewable Resources by a Robot Swarm

Renewable resources like fish stock or forests should be exploited at a rate that supports regeneration and sustainability—a complex problem that requires adaptive approaches to maintain a sufficiently high exploitation while avoiding depletion. In the presence of oblivious agents that cannot keep track of all available resources—a frequent condition in swarm robotics—ensuring that the exploitation effort is correctly balanced is particularly challenging. Additionally, the possibility to exploit resources by multiple robots opens the way to focusing the effort either on a single or on multiple resources in parallel. This means that the swarm needs to collectively decide whether to remain cohesive or split among multiple resources, as a function of the ability of the available resources to replenish after exploitation. In this paper, we propose a decentralised strategy for a swarm of robots that adapts to the available resources and balances the effort among them, hence allowing to maximise the exploitation rate while avoiding to completely deplete the resources. A detailed analysis of the strategy parameters provides insights into the working principles and expected performance of the robot swarm.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Emergent naming conventions in a foraging robot swarm

In this study, we investigate the emergence of naming conventions within a swarm of robots that collectively forage, that is, collect resources from multiple sources in the environment. While foraging, the swarm explores the environment and makes a collective decision on how to exploit the available resources, either by selecting a single source or concurrently exploiting more than one. At the same time, the robots locally exchange messages in order to agree on how to name each source. Here, we study the correlation between the task-induced interaction network and the emergent naming conventions. In particular, our goal is to determine whether the dynamics of the interaction network are sufficient to determine an emergent vocabulary that is potentially useful to the robot swarm. To be useful, linguistic conventions need to be compact and meaningful, that is, to be the minimal description of the relevant features of the environment and of the made collective decision. We show that, in order to obtain a useful vocabulary, the task-dependent interaction network alone is not sufficient, but it must be combined with a correlation between language and foraging dynamics. On the basis of these results, we propose a decentralised algorithm for collective categorisation which enables the swarm to achieve a useful—compact and meaningful—naming of all the available sources. Understanding how useful linguistic conventions emerge contributes to the design of robot swarms with potentially improved autonomy, flexibility, and self-awareness.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Emergent naming conventions in a foraging robot swarm

In this study, we investigate the emergence of naming conventions within a swarm of robots that collectively forage, that is, collect resources from multiple sources in the environment. While foraging, the swarm explores the environment and makes a collective decision on how to exploit the available resources, either by selecting a single source or concurrently exploiting more than one. At the same time, the robots locally exchange messages in order to agree on how to name each source. Here, we study the correlation between the task-induced interaction network and the emergent naming conventions. In particular, our goal is to determine whether the dynamics of the interaction network are sufficient to determine an emergent vocabulary that is potentially useful to the robot swarm. To be useful, linguistic conventions need to be compact and meaningful, that is, to be the minimal description of the relevant features of the environment and of the made collective decision. We show that, in order to obtain a useful vocabulary, the task-dependent interaction network alone is not sufficient, but it must be combined with a correlation between language and foraging dynamics. On the basis of these results, we propose a decentralised algorithm for collective categorisation which enables the swarm to achieve a useful—compact and meaningful—naming of all the available sources. Understanding how useful linguistic conventions emerge contributes to the design of robot swarms with potentially improved autonomy, flexibility, and self-awareness.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Création d'un corpus de traces graphiques de la Langue des Signes Française

International audienceThis work constitutes a contribution to the emergence of a common writing for French Sign Language in a graphical or even a typographical framework. Our hypothesis is as follows : in its execution, the gestural sign contains a readable graphic trace that can be visualized with a photographic device. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, we gather a photographic corpus made of isolated elicited signs.Le projet GestuelScript se présente comme une contribution à l'émergence d'une écriture courante pour la Langue des Signes Française dans un cadre de travail essentiellement graphique, voire typographique. Notre hypothèse : le signe gestuel décrirait, dans sa réalisation, une trace graphique lisible qu'un dispositif photographique permet de visualiser. Pour la tester, nous constituons un corpus de travail photographique fait de signes isolés élicités

Language Evolution in Swarm Robotics: A Perspective

While direct local communication is very important for the organization of robot swarms, so far it has mostly been used for relatively simple tasks such as signaling robots preferences or states. Inspired by the emergence of meaning found in natural languages, more complex communication skills could allow robot swarms to tackle novel situations in ways that may not be a priori obvious to the experimenter. This would pave the way for the design of robot swarms with higher autonomy and adaptivity. The state of the art regarding the emergence of communication for robot swarms has mostly focused on offline evolutionary approaches, which showed that signaling and communication can emerge spontaneously even when not explicitly promoted. However, these approaches do not lead to complex, language-like communication skills, and signals are tightly linked to environmental and/or sensory-motor states that are specific to the task for which communication was evolved. To move beyond current practice, we advocate an approach to emergent communication in robot swarms based on language games. Thanks to language games, previous studies showed that cultural self-organization—rather than biological evolution—can be responsible for the complexity and expressive power of language. We suggest that swarm robotics can be an ideal test-bed to advance research on the emergence of language-like communication. The latter can be key to provide robot swarms with additional skills to support self-organization and adaptivity, enabling the design of more complex collective behaviors

Un système analogique visuo-gestuel pour la graphie de la LS

International audienceThis work constitutes a contribution to the emergence of a common writing for French Sign Language. Our approach, while in line with previously conducted research (the LSscript project made a review of past works in the field of research of a graphical formalism for LSF), brings the reflexion into a multidisciplinary context. Our assumption is that writing and sign language share a same visual-gestural modality. Our hypothesis is as follows : in its execution, the gestural sign contains a readable graphic trace. In order to question our assumption, we use multi-angle photography to constitute a corpus of signs in which all three dimensions of these traces are visible. This article describes the principles and hypothesis, the techniques for building the corpus, and the validation protocol of our hypothesis.Ce travail constitue une contribution à l'émergence d'une écriture courante pour la Langue des Signes Française. Complémentaire des recherches déjà menées (le projet LSscript a fait la recension des travaux sur la recherche d'un formalisme graphique pour la LSF), notre projet s'inscrit dans un espace de réflexion pluridisciplinaire. Nous suivons un postulat selon lequel l'écriture et les LS partagent une même modalité visuo-gestuelle. Notre hypothèse : le signe gestuel contiendrait, dans sa réalisation, une trace graphique lisible. Nous proposons de capter des traces graphiques par une technique de photographie multi- angles, afin de constituer un corpus de signes rendant visible ce tracé dans les trois dimensions de l'espace. Cet article décrit nos principes et hypothèses, les techniques de constitution du corpus et notre protocole de validation des hypothèses

Il progetto GestualScript

International audienceLe projet GestualScript se présente comme une contribution à l'émergence d'une écriture courante pour la LSF dans le cadre d’une démarche cherchant à visualiser puis permettre l’exploration par les sourds et les chercheurs des dimensions graphiques intrinsèques à cette langue gestuelle.The GestualScript project aims at contributing to the emergence of a useful writing system for the LSF, through an approach seeking to visualize and allow the analysis of the intrinsic graphic dimensions of this gestual language by the deaf and the researchers.Il progetto GestualScript vuole essere un contributo alla nascita di una scrittura corrente per la LSF, attraverso un approccio che cerca di visualizzare e consentire l'esplorazione delle dimensioni grafiche intrinseche di questa lingua gestuale da parte dei sordi e dei ricercatori