Cooperative route-searching behavior of multi-robot system using hello-call communication

Deals with a computer simulation study of the cooperative behavior of multirobots for investigating the characteristics of swarm intelligence generated by multirobot system. Individual robots in the multirobot system are equipped with low-level intelligence to detect obstacles, steer, proceed, and undertake a hello-call communication. This paper first clarifies the characteristics of multirobot behavior under free traveling without hello-call communication and then the characteristics of hello-call communication with respect to message transmission power over whole member robots. Introducing a marker robot to the multi-robot system, the authors find that the multirobot system can generate a communication chain to be used for searching the route to their goal. They demonstrate the swarm intelligence of the multirobots system in the case of route-searching and show the effects of robot population on the swarm intelligence.