Supervised Group Size Regulation in a Heterogeneous Robotic Swarm

In this study, we work with a heterogeneous swarm of wheeled and aerial robots. We present a self- organised approach inspired by the aggregation behaviour of cockroaches that allows each aerial robot to form a dedicated group of wheeled robots of a particular size. Our approach is based on simple probabilistic rules, but still proves robust and flexible. Different groups can be formed in parallel, and the size of the groups can be dynamically modified. Our work is based on a real robotic platform that is still under development—here, we present results and analysis of extensive simulation-based experiments. We also present a mathematical analysis of our system.