Self Organizing Behavior And Swarm Intelligence In A Pack Of Mobile Miniature Robots In Search Of Pollutants

In this paper we discuss a "distributed robotic system" (DRS) based on the notions of "instinctive" response and cooperation. The proposed DRS comprises cellular robotic units dedicated to enviromental monitoring. The paper attempts to exploit previous theoretical analysis in the field of Cellular Robotic Systems (CRS) in order to implement a real society of miniature robots. We believe that practical applications of CRS can be envisaged, just like for their biological analogues, essentially in those tasks requiring ''e xp 1 or at i o n" "h u n t i n g /d e f e n c e", and "transportation" capabilities. The specific application which has been considered in this paper is the search of pollutants emitting odors and gases, perhaps toxic, that the cellular robots must detect. The analogy is with a pack of animals aggressively in search of preys in a partially constrained unstructured environment. The overall behavior of the pack of CRS is investigated by simulation. In addition, the problem of efficient communication between different robotic units is also addressed.