Swarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of multiple robots as a system which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be ...

s. ″In a robot swarm, the collective behavior of the robots results from local interactions between the robots and between the robots and the environment in which they act.″ It is supposed that a desired

collective behavior The expression collective behavior was first used by Franklin Henry Giddings and employed later by Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, Herbert Blumer, Ralph H. Turner and Lewis Killian, and Neil Smelser to refer to social processes and events ...

emerges from the interactions between the robots and interactions of robots with the environment. This approach emerged on the field of artificial swarm intelligence, as well as the biological studies of insects, ants and other fields in nature, where

swarm behaviour Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective animal behaviour, collective behaviour exhibited by entities, particularly animals, of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving ''en masse'' or a ...

occurs.

Definition

The research of swarm

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

is to study the design of robots, their physical body and their controlling

behaviour Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...

s. It is inspired but not limited by the emergent behaviour observed in social insects, called

swarm intelligence Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, ...

. Relatively simple individual rules can produce a large set of complex

s. A key component is the communication between the members of the group that build a system of constant feedback. The swarm behaviour involves constant change of individuals in cooperation with others, as well as the behaviour of the whole group. Unlike distributed robotic systems in general, swarm robotics emphasizes a ''large'' number of robots, and promotes

scalability Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system. In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that a company can increase sales given increased resources. For example, a ...

, for instance by using only local communication. That local communication for example can be achieved by

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

transmission systems, like

radio frequency Radio frequency (RF) is the oscillation rate of an alternating electric current or voltage or of a magnetic, electric or electromagnetic field or mechanical system in the frequency range from around to around . This is roughly between the up ...

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of Light, visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from ...

Goals and applications

Miniaturization and cost are key factors in swarm robotics. These are the constraints in building large groups of robots; therefore the simplicity of the individual team member should be emphasized. This should motivate a swarm-intelligent approach to achieve meaningful behavior at swarm-level, instead of the individual level.
Much research has been directed at this goal of simplicity at the individual robot level. Being able to use actual hardware in research of Swarm Robotics rather than simulations allows researchers to encounter and resolve many more issues and broaden the scope of Swarm Research. Thus, development of simple robots for Swarm intelligence research is a very important aspect of the field. The goals include keeping the cost of individual robots low to allow

, making each member of the swarm less demanding of resources and more power/energy efficient. Compared with individual robots, a swarm can commonly decompose its given missions to their subtasks; a swarm is more robust to partial swarm failure and is more flexible with regard to different missions. One such swarm system is the LIBOT Robotic System that involves a low cost robot built for outdoor swarm robotics. The robots are also made with provisions for indoor use via Wi-Fi, since the GPS sensors provide poor communication inside buildings. Another such attempt is the micro robot (Colias), built in the Computer Intelligence Lab at the

University of Lincoln , mottoeng = Freedom through wisdom , established = 1861 – Hull School of Art1905 – Endsleigh College1976 – Hull College1992 – University of Humberside1996 – University of Lincolnshire and Humberside2001 � ...

, UK. This micro robot is built on a 4 cm circular chassis and is low-cost and open platform for use in a variety of Swarm Robotics applications.

Applications

Potential applications for swarm robotics are many. They include tasks that demand

miniaturization Miniaturization ( Br.Eng.: ''Miniaturisation'') is the trend to manufacture ever smaller mechanical, optical and electronic products and devices. Examples include miniaturization of mobile phones, computers and vehicle engine downsizing. In el ...

(

nanorobotics Nanoid robotics, or for short, nanorobotics or nanobotics, is an emerging technology field creating machines or robots whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). More specifically, nanorobotics (as opposed to m ...

microbotics Microbotics (or microrobotics) is the field of miniature robotics, in particular mobile robots with characteristic dimensions less than 1 mm. The term can also be used for robots capable of handling micrometer size components. History Micro ...

), like distributed sensing tasks in

micromachinery Micromachines are mechanical objects that are fabricated in the same general manner as integrated circuits. They are generally considered to be between 100 nanometres to 100 micrometres in size, though that is debatable. The applications of ...

or the human body. One of the most promising uses of swarm robotics is in

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

missions.Hu, J.; Niu, H.; Carrasco, J.; Lennox, B.; Arvin, F.,
Voronoi-Based Multi-Robot Autonomous Exploration in Unknown Environments via Deep Reinforcement Learning
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2020. Swarms of robots of different sizes could be sent to places that rescue-workers can't reach safely, to explore the unknown environment and solve complex mazes via onboard sensors. On the other hand, swarm robotics can be suited to tasks that demand cheap designs, for instance

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the econom ...

or agricultural shepherding tasks.Hu, J.; Turgut, A.; Krajnik, T.; Lennox, B.; Arvin, F.,
Occlusion-Based Coordination Protocol Design for Autonomous Robotic Shepherding Tasks
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 2020. More controversially, swarms of military robots can form an autonomous army. U.S. Naval forces have tested a swarm of autonomous boats that can steer and take offensive actions by themselves. The boats are unmanned and can be fitted with any kind of kit to deter and destroy enemy vessels. During the Syrian Civil War, Russian forces in the region reported attacks on their main air force base in the country by swarms of fixed-wing drones loaded with explosives. Most efforts have focused on relatively small groups of machines. However, a swarm consisting of 1,024 individual robots was demonstrated by Harvard in 2014, the largest to date. Another large set of applications may be solved using swarms of micro air vehicles, which are also broadly investigated nowadays. In comparison with the pioneering studies of swarms of flying robots using precise

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robo ...

systems in laboratory conditions, current systems such as

Shooting Star Shooting star refers to a meteor. Shooting star may also refer to: Film, television, and theater * ''Shooting Star'' (2015 film), a 2015 Bulgarian short film * ''Shooting Star'' (2020 film), a 2020 Canadian short film * ''Shooting Stars'' ...

can control teams of hundreds of micro aerial vehicles in outdoor environment using GNSS systems (such as GPS) or even stabilize them using onboard localization systems where GPS is unavailable. Swarms of micro aerial vehicles have been already tested in tasks of autonomous surveillance, plume tracking, and reconnaissance in a compact phalanx. Numerous works on cooperative swarms of unmanned ground and aerial vehicles have been conducted with target applications of cooperative environment monitoring, simultaneous localization and mapping, convoy protection, and moving target localization and tracking. Additionally, progress has been made in the application of autonomous swarms in the field of manufacturing, known as swarm 3D printing. This is particularly useful for the production of large structures and components, where traditional

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

is not able to be utilized due to hardware size constraints. Miniaturization and mass mobilization allows the manufacturing system to achieve

scale invariance In physics, mathematics and statistics, scale invariance is a feature of objects or laws that do not change if scales of length, energy, or other variables, are multiplied by a common factor, and thus represent a universality. The technical term ...

, not limited in effective build volume. While in its early stage of development, swarm 3D printing is currently being commercialized by startup companies. Using the Rapid Induction Printing metal additive manufacturing process, Rosotics was the first company to demonstrate swarm 3D printing using a metallic payload, and the only to achieve metallic 3D printing from an airborne platform.

Drone swarming

Drone swarms are used in target search, drone displays, and delivery. A drone display commonly uses multiple, lighted drones at night for an artistic display or advertising. A drone swarm in delivery can carry multiple packages to a single destination at a time and overcome single drone's payload and battery limitations. A drone swarm may undertake different flight formations to reduce overall energy consumption due to drag forces.

References

External links