SWARM ROBOTICS

SEMINAR REPORT

Submitted by

ADRASHMON K R
(20040683)

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

MODEL POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE, MATTAKKARA

2022-2023
 DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING
MODEL POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE, MATTAKKARA

2022-2023

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the seminar report entitled SWARM ROBOTICS is

the bonafide record of the work done by ADRASHMON K R (20040683) of
third year Polytechnic (ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING) student as part of
his seminar work.

Mr. Bibin Mohan John Mr. Rajesh R

Seminar Coordinator Head of the department

Lecturer Dept. of ELE, MPTC Dept. of ELE, MPTC

Internal Examiner External Examiner

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

SI.NO TITLE PAGE NO

1 Abstract 1

2 Introduction 2

3 Robots as a part of a Swarm 3

4 Multi-Robotics Systems and Swarm Robotics 4

5 How Swarm Robotics is inspired from Social 5

Insects

6 Characteristics of Robot Swarm 5

7 Advantages of Multi-Robotics Systems as 6

compared to a Single Robot

8 Experimental Platforms in Swarm Robotics 6

9 Algorithms and Technique used for various 12

tasks in Swarm Robotics

10 The Real World Application of Swarm 16

Robotics
SWARM ROBOTICS

ABSTRACT

Swarm robotics is currently one of the most important application areas

for swarm inteligence. Swarms provide the possibility of enhanced task
performance, high reliability(fault tolerance), low unit complexity and
decreased cost over traditional robotic systems. They can accomplish
some tasks that would be impossible for a single robot to achieve. Swarm
robots can be applied to many fields, such as fiexible manuracturmo
systems, space craits, inspecuomantenance, construction agriculture and
medicine work. Swarm-bots are a collection of mobile robots able to sell
assemble and to set organise in order to solve problems that cannot be
solved by a single robot. These robots combine the power of swarm
intelligence with the flexibility of self reconfiguration as aggregate
swarm-bots can dynamically change their singhye lo maich
environmental vanations Swarm rhokes is the stry of how large number of
relatively simple physically embodied agents can be designed such that a
desired collective behavior emerges from the local interactions among
agents and between the agents and the environment. It is a novel
approach to the coordination of large numbers of robots.

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INTRODUCTION

Interacting, understanding and then responding to the situation are some of the
greatest features of humans and those are the things which make us what we are. We are born
to live in a social society and we have always known about us that we are the most
well-mannered social creature known since the creation of this planet.

The social culture and interaction with each other to help for a common goal is not
only found in humans but also in other species of this planet like a flock of birds or fishes or
bee's, all they have a one thing in common that they are having a collective behavior. When
the birds migrate its often seen they are in a group which is led by the lead member of their
group and all are following them and their group are designed in a particular geometrical
shapes despite being the birds have no sense of the shapes and figures and also the group is
made such that the senior members of the group are on the boundaries while the young ones
or the newborns are in the center.

The same characteristics are found in fire ants, these ants are a bit different from
other species of the ants and are especially known for their group behavior, they build
together, they eat together and they defend their colonies from the preys together, basically
they know they can achieve more when they are in a group. A recent study was being
conducted on the group behavior of these ants in which it was found that they were capable of
making strong structures whenever needed, such as when needed to create a small bridge to
crossover.The collective behavior of these social animals and insect’s help's them to achieve
more despite all their constraints. Researchers have demonstrated that individuals of these
groups do not need any representation or sophisticated knowledge to produce such complex
behaviors. In social insects, animals and birds individuals are not informed about the global
status of the colony. The knowledge of the swarm is distributed throughout all the
agents, where an individual is not able to accomplish its task without the rest of the
swarm. What if this collective sensing can be brought into a group of Robots? This is
what swarm robotics is and we will learn about this in detail in this article.

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Robots as a part of a Swarm

Our environment in which we are living is very much inspiring for us, many of us
take inspiration for their work from nature and the environment, famous inventors like
the Leonardo da Vinci did it very well and can be seen in his designs in today's world we are
also making the same process work for us for solving the design and engineering problems
like the nose of bullet trains are inspired from the beak of the kingfisher so that it has more
speed and be more energy efficient and produce relatively less noise as it passes through the
tunnels and there is term coined for this and its known as Biomimicry.

So to solve the complex tasks where human intervention is difficult and has higher
complexity of what needs to be more than just an average robot like certain uses cases where
a building is collapsed due to an earthquake and people are depressed under the
concrete, certainly this problem requires some kind of robot which can run multiple tasks at
once and small enough to make it through the concrete and helps to get the
information of human existence at the first place, so what comes to your mind, a group of
small robots that are small enough and autonomously create their own way and get the
information and it certainly mimics the some kinda swarm of insects or flies and hence
where the swarm robotics comes into first place and here's the more formal one. Swarm
robotics is a field of multi-robotics in which a large number of robots are coordinated in
a distributed and a decentralized way. it's based upon the use of local rules, small simple
robots inspired by the collective behavior of social insects so that a large number
of simple robots can outperform a complex task in a more efficient way than a single
robot, giving robustness and flexibility to the group.

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Multi-Robotics Systems and Swarm Robotics

Swarm robotics is a part of the multi-robotic system and as a group, they have some
characteristics to their multiple axes that define their group behavior

Collective size: Collective size is the SIZE-INF which is N>>1 which is opposite to
the SIZE-LIM, where the number of robot’s N is smaller than their respective environment
size they are put in.

Communication range: Communication range is COM-NEAR, so that the robots can only
communicate with the robots which are close enough.

Communication topology: Communication topology for the robots in the swarm would be
generally TOP-GRAPH, robots are linked in a general graph topology.

Communication bandwidth: Communication bandwidth is

BAND-MOTION, Communication cost between the two robots is the same as moving
the robots between locations.

Collective recounfigrability: Collective reconfigurability is generally ARR-COMM, this is

coordinated arrangement with the members that communicate, but it also could be
ARR- DYN, that is the dynamic arrangement, positions can change randomly.

Process ability: Process ability is PROC-TME, where the computational model is a tuning
machine equivalent.

Collective composition: Collective composition is CMP-HOM, meaning that robots are

homogeneous.

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How Swarm Robotics is inspired from Social Insects

Multi-robotic systems maintain some of the characteristics of social insect like
robustness, the robot swarm can work even if some of the individuals fail, or there are
disruptions in the surrounding environment; flexibility, the swarm are able to create
different solutions for different tasks and are able to change each robot role depending
on the need of moment. Scalability, the robot swarm is able to work in different group
sizes, from a few individuals to thousands of them.

Characteristics of Robot Swarm

As said simple robotic swarm acquires a characteristic of social insects which are listed as
follows

1.The swarm of robots must be autonomous, and able to sense and act in real environment.

2.The number of robots in a swarm must be large enough so as to back their every single task as
a group which they are required to perform.

3.There should be homogeneity in the swarm, there can be different groups in the swarm but
they should not be too many.

4.A single robot of the swarm must be incapable and inefficient with respect to their main
objective, that is, they need to collaborate in order to succeed and improve the performance.

5.All the robots are necessitated to have only local sensing and communication capabilities with
neighboring partner of the swarm, this ensures the coordination of the swarm is
distributed and scalability becomes one of the properties of the system.

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Advantages of Multi-Robotics Systems as compared to a Single Robot

∙Task Parallelism: We all know the tasks could be decomposable, and we all are
aware of the agile development method, so by using parallelism, groups can make to perform
the task more efficiently.

∙Task Enablement: A group is more powerful than a single one and the same applies
for the swarm robotics, where a group of robots can make task do certain task that is
impossible for a single robot
∙Distribution in Sensing: As the swarm has a collective sensing so it has wider range of
sensing than the range of a single robot.
∙Distribution in Action: A group of robots can actuate different actions at different places at
the same time.
∙Fault Tolerance: The failure of a single robot within a swarm of robots within a
group does not imply that the task is going to fail or cannot be accomplished.

Experimental Platforms in Swarm Robotics

There are different experimental platforms used for swarm robotics which involves the use of
the different experimental platforms and different robotic simulators to stimulate
the environment of swarm robotics without the actual hardware needed.

1. Robotic Platforms

Different robotic platforms are used in different swarm-robotic experiments in different

laboratories

(i) Swarmbot

Sensors used: it has various sensors to help the bot out which includes range sensors
and camera.

Motion: It uses wheels for moving from one to another.

Developed by: It's developed by Rice University, USA

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Description: SwarmBot is a swarm robotic platform developed for research by

Rice University. It can autonomously work for approximate of 3 hours of a single
charge, also these bots are self-enabled to find and dock themselves to charging stations
placed on walls.

(ii) Kobot

Sensors used: It involves the use of the distance sensor, vision sensors and compass.

Motion: It uses wheels for their motion

Developed by: It's developed in the KOVAN Research Lab at Middle East Technical
University, Turkey.

Description: Kobot is specifically designed for the research in swarm robotics. It is made of
several sensors that make it a perfect platform for performing various swarm robotic
situations such as coordinated motion. It has can work autonomously for 10 hours on a single
charge. It also includes a replaceable battery which is to be recharged manually and
It is mostly been used in the implementation of self-organizing scenarios.

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(iii) S-bot

Sensors used: It makes the use of various sensor to get the things to work like sensors for
light, IR, position, force, speed, temp, humidity, acceleration, and a mic.

Motion: It makes the use of treels attached to its base for its movements.

Developed by: It's developed by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

(EPFL), Switzerland.

Description: S-bot is one of the several competent and substantial swarm robotic platforms
ever built. it has a unique gripper design capable of gripping objects and other s-bots. Also,
they can approximately work out for 1 hour on a single charge.

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(iv) Jasmine Robot

Sensors used: It makes use of distance and light sensors.

Developed by: It's developed by the University of Stuttgart, Germany.

Motion: It makes its movement on the wheels.

Description: Jasmine mobile robots is a swarm robotic platforms which is used

in many swarm robotic research.

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(v) E-Puck

Sensors used: It uses a variety of sensors like distance, camera, bearing, acceleration, and a
mic.

Developed by: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

Motion: It's based on the wheel motion.

Description: E-puck is primarily designed for educational purposes and is one of the most
successful robots. However, due to its simplicity, it is often employed in swarm robotics
research as well. It has user replaceable batteries with a working time of 2-4 hours.

(vi) Kilobot

Sensors used: It uses a combination of distance and light sensors.

Developed by: Harvard University, USA

Motion: It uses vibrations of the system for the movement of the system's body.

Description: Kilobot is a moderately recent swarm robotic platform with a unique

function of group charging and group programming. Due to its simplicity and low
power consumption, it has an uptime of up to 24 hours. Robots are charged manually in
groups in a special charging station.

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2. Simulators

Robotic simulators solve the problem of the hardware needed for the job of testing
the credibility of the bots in the artificially simulated real environment parameters.

There exist many robotic simulators which can be used for multi-robotic experiments,
and more specifically for the swarm robotic experiments and all of them differ in their
technical aspects but also in the license and the cost. Some of the simulators for the
swarm bots and Multi-robotic platforms are as follows:

● SwarmBot3D: SwarmBot3D is a simulator for the multi-robotics but designed

specifically for the S-Bot robot of the SwarmBot project.
● Microsoft Robotics Studio: The robotic studio is a simulator developed by
Microsoft. It allows multi-robotic simulation and requires the Windows platform
to run.
● Webots: Webots is a realistic mobile simulator that allows multi-robot
simulations, with already built models of the real robots. It can simulate real
collisions by applying the physics of the real world. However, its performance
decreases when working with more than robots making simulations with a
large number of robots difficult.
● Player/stage/Gazebo: Player/stage/Gazebo is an open source simulator with
multi-robotic capabilities and a wide set of available robots and sensors ready
for use.

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Algorithms and Technique used for various tasks in Swarm Robotics

Here we are going to explore the various techniques used in swarm robotics for various
simple tasks such as aggregation, dispersion etc. These tasks are the basic initial steps for
all the high end working in swarm robotics.

Aggregation: Aggregation is getting all the bots together and it’s really important and initial
step in other complex steps such as pattern formation, self-assembly, exchange information
and collective movements. A robot uses its sensors such as proximity sensors and
microphone which uses sound exchange mechanisms with the help of the actuator such as
speakers. The sensors helps a single bot to find the nearest robot which also turns out to be
the center of the group, where the bot has to concentrate solely on the other bot which is at
the center of the group and reach towards it and the same process is followed by all the
members of the swarm which let them aggregate all.

Dispersion: When the robots are aggregated at a single place then the next step is to
disperse them in the environment where they work as a single constitute member of the
swarm and this also helps in the exploration of the environment each bot of the swarm work
out as a single sensor when it is left to explore. Various algorithms have been proposed and
used for the dispersion of the robots, one of the approaches includes the potential field
algorithm for the dispersion of the robots in which the robots get repel by the obstacles and
other robots which allow the swarm environment to disperse linearly.

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 SWARM ROBOTICS

Formation of Patterns: Formation of patterns in swarm robotics is a major characteristic of their

collective behavior, these patterns can be very much helping when a problem is to be solved which
involves the whole group works together. In pattern formation, bots create a global shape by
changing the portion of the individual robots where each bot has just local information.

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A swarm of robots forms a structure with an internal and external defined shape.
The rules that make the particle/robots to aggregate in the desired formation are
local, but a global shape emerges, without having any global information with
respect to an individual member of the swarm. The algorithm uses virtual springs
between the neighboring particles, taking into consideration how many neighbors
they have.

Collective movement: What's the meaning of a team if they all can't work out
the problem together and that's the best part of a swarm? Collective movement is
a way of letting to coordinate a group of robots and making them move together
as a group in a cohesive way. It’s a basic way of making some collective tasks
done and can be classified into two types formation and flocking.

There are many methods of collective movement but only those allowing
scalability with a growing number of robots are of concern where each robot
recognizes the relative position of its neighbor and react with respective forces
which could be attractive or repulsive to form structures for collective
movements.

Searching of a source: Swarm robotics is very much successful in the task of

the source searching, especially when the source for the searching is complex as
in case of sound or odor. The searching by the swarm robotics is done in two
ways one is global other is local, and the difference between the two is the
communication. One with the global communication among the robots in which
the robots are able to find the global maximum source. The other one is restricted
to only local communication between the robots to find the local maxima.

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Transporting of objects: The ants have collective transportation of objects where an

individual ant waits for the other mate for the cooperation if the object to be transported is
too heavy. Under the same light robots, the swarm makes the things work out in the same
way where each robot has the advantage of getting cooperation from the other robots for
transporting the objects. S-bots offers a great platform for solving the problem of
transportation where they self-assemble to cooperate and their algorithm scales up if the
object to be transported to be is heavy.

The other method is the collective transportation of objects where the objects are collected
and stored for later transportation, here the robots have two different tasks - collecting the
objects and placing them in a cart, and collectively move the cart carrying those objects.

Collective Mapping: Collective mapping is used for the exploration and mapping of the big
indoor areas using a large number of robots.

In one method the mapping is carried out by the two group of two robots, which exchange
information to merge the maps. The other method is role based in which the robot can
assume any of the two roles which are moving or landmark that they can exchange for the
movement of the swarm. Also, the robots have a certain estimate of their position so have to
an estimate of the location of the other robots so as to build a collective map.

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The Real World Application of Swarm Robotics

Though the extensive research on swarm robotics has begun around 2012
till now it has not come out with the commercial real-world application, it is
being used for medical purposes but not at that large scale and still is
under testing. There are various reasons behind that this technology is not
coming out commercially.

Designing of Algorithm for Individual and the Global: The collective

behavior of the swarm comes out from the individual which requires to
design a single robot and its behavior, and presently there exist no method
of going from the individual to group behavior.

Testing and Implementation: Extensive requirements for the laboratories

and infrastructure for further development.

Analysis and modeling: The various basic tasks performed in swarm

robotics suggest out that these are non-linear and so building out the
mathematical models for their working is quite hard

Besides these challenges, there are further security challenges for the
individual and the swarm due to their simple design

(i) Physical capture of the robots.

(ii) Identity of the individual in the swarm, that the robot must know if it is
interacting with a robot of its swarm or another swarm.

(iii) Communication attacks on the individual and the swarm.

The main goal of the swarm robotics is to cover a wide region where the
robots could disperse and perform their respective tasks. They are useful
for detecting hazardous events like leakages, landmines etc and the main
advantage of a distributed and moveable network of sensors is that it can
sense the wide area and even act on it.

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