Hormone-Inspired Behaviour Switching for the Control of Collective Robotic Organisms

Robotics

Tüze Kuyucu¹  Ivan Tanev² 

[1] Engineering Department, Griffith Textile Machines, Washington NE38 8QA, UK;Department of Information Systems Design, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe 610-0321, Japan; E-Mail:

关键词: collective robotics;    modular robotics;    swarm robotics;    hormone-inspired;    XGP;    Genetic Programming;    reconfigurable robotics;    pheromone-inspired;   

DOI  :  10.3390/robotics2030165

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Swarming and modular robotic locomotion are two disconnected behaviours that a group of small homogeneous robots can be used to achieve. The use of these two behaviours is a popular subject in robotics research involving search, rescue and exploration. However, they are rarely addressed as two behaviours that can coexist within a single robotic system. Here, we present a bio-inspired decision mechanism, which provides a convenient way for evolution to configure the conditions and timing of behaving as a swarm or a modular robot in an exploration scenario. The decision mechanism switches among two behaviours that are previously developed (a pheromone-based swarm control and a sinusoidal rectilinear modular robot movement). We use Genetic Programming (GP) to evolve the controller for these decisions, which acts without a centralized mechanism and with limited inter-robot communication. The results show that the proposed bio-inspired decision mechanism provides an evolvable medium for the GP to utilize in evolving an effective decision-making mechanism.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.