phi Clust: Pheromone-based Aggregation for Robotic Swarms


Arvin F., TURGUT A. E., Krajnik T., Rahimi S., Okay I. E., Yue S., ...More

25th IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid, Spain, 1 - 05 October 2018, pp.4288-4294 identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Full Text
  • Doi Number: 10.1109/iros.2018.8593961
  • City: Madrid
  • Country: Spain
  • Page Numbers: pp.4288-4294
  • Keywords: Swarm Robotics, Aggregation, Pheromone, Bio-inspired, CUE-BASED AGGREGATION, DECISION-MAKING, BEHAVIOR
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

In this paper, we proposed a pheromone-based aggregation method based on the state-of-the-art BEECLUST algorithm. We investigated the impact of pheromone-based communication on the efficiency of robotic swarms to locate and aggregate at areas with a given cue. In particular, we evaluated the impact of the pheromone evaporation and diffusion on the time required for the swarm to aggregate. In a series of simulated and real-world evaluation trials, we demonstrated that augmenting the BEECLUST method with artificial pheromone resulted in faster aggregation times.