Part 2 - Swarm robotics
Swarm robotics is the study of how to design large groups of robots that can operate autonomously in a distributed way, and without the intervention of any external infrastructure or any form of centralized control. In a similar fashion as biologist study biological swarms, swarm robotics designers are largely focused on studying behaviors that robot swarms can exhibit.
In these practical sessions we will cover some of these behaviors, focusing mostly on demonstrating how the simple individual actions of each robot in a swarm lead the whole group of robots to act in an intelligent way.
During this part of the course: you will use the ARGoS simulator—a multi-robot simulator specialized in swarm robotics; you will simulate swarms of foot-bots—a robot widely used in swarm robotics research; and you will produce control software for the robots by using the LUA programming language.
This part of the course covers three particular cases of swarm robotics behaviors and one project on the topic:
- (P2.1) Random walk
- (P2.2) Aggregation
- (P2.3) Pattern formation
- (P2.4) Project: Foraging with forbidden areas
In sessions P2.1 to P2.3, you will be given with examples of robots exhibiting specifics swarm behaviors. Your task will be to develop the code that produces those behaviors, and experiment with it.
In session P2.4, you will be given with a mission to be performed with a robot swarm. Your task will be to design the swarm behaviors and develop the code to perform the mission.
The course is planned in a progressive manner—that is, the code that you develop in a practical session might be required in a following one.
Evaluation
The swarm robotics part of the course will be evaluated with the project that you will develop in the session (P2.4).
Resources
In the left panel, you find quick access links to the resources you will mostly use during this part of the course: an overview the foot-bot robot and the functions to interact with it in ARGoS, the definition of the most used mathematical functions in LUA, and a description of the ARGoS interface.
Further readings
The following reading is a recent literature review on swarm robotics.