The Swarm-bots and swarmanoid experiments in swarm robotics

Summary form only given. Swarm robotics is about constructing and controlling swarms of autonomous robots that cooperate to perform tasks that go beyond the capabilities of the single robots in the swarm. In the talk, I will present the results of two large experiments in swarm robotics: Swarm-bots and Swarmanoid. In Swarm-bots, I consider a swarm of s-bots, ground robots capable of connecting to, and disconnecting from, other s-bots. When they are connected to each other the s-bots become a single robotic system, a swarm-bot, that can move and change its shape. A swarm-bot can solve problems that cannot be solved by s-bots alone such as transporting heavy objects, moving on rough terrain, and passing obstacles such as holes or steps. I will show video recordings of experiments we performed to study coordinated movement, path formation, self-assembly, collective transport, shape formation, and other collective behaviours using the swarm-bot platform. In Swarmanoid, I consider a heterogeneous swarm composed of three types of autonomous robots: flying, climbing and ground robots. These robots cooperate both physically and logically: climbing robots cannot move on the ground and are transported to the climbing location by ground robots, while the movements of the ground and climbing robots are guided by the flying robots. I will present the results of experiments in which the Swarmanoid robots cooperate in a search and retrieval task in a 3-dimensional environment.