Guiding robots’ behaviors using pheromone communication

Abstract This paper describes an ongoing project to investigate the uses of pheromones as a means of communication in robotics. The particular example of pheromone communication considered here was inspired by queen bee pheromones that have a number of crucial functions in a bee colony, such as keeping together and stabilizing the colony. In the context of a robotic system, one of the proposed applications for robot pheromones is to allow a group of robots to be guided by a robot leader. The robot leader could release different chemicals to elicit a range of behaviors from other members of the group. A change of the operating temperature of tin oxide gas sensors has been implemented in order to differentiate different chemicals. This paper provides details of the robots used in the project and their behaviors. The sensors, especially the method of using the tin oxide gas sensors, the robot control algorithms and experimental results are presented. In this project, pheromones were used to trigger congregating behavior and light seeking in a group of robots.

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