Swarm robotics: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 07:09, 4 December 2024

Latest revision as of 12:07, 27 August 2025

(22 intermediate revisions by 10 users not shown)

Line 1:

{{Short description|Coordination of multiple robots as a system}}

{{Multiple issues|

{{essay-like|date=May 2016}}

{{more footnotes needed|date=August 2013}}

}}

[[File:RechargingSwarm.jpg|thumb|right|Swarm of [[open-source]] Jasmine micro-robots recharging themselves]]

[[Image:IRobot Create team.jpg|thumb|right|A team of [[iRobot Create]] [[robot]]s at the [[Georgia Institute of Technology]]]]

{{Multi-agent system}}

'''Swarm robotics''' is the study of how to design independent systems of robots without centralized control. The emerging [[Swarm behaviour|swarming behavior]] of robotic swarms is created through the interactions between individual robots and the environment.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Dorigo |first1=Marco |last2=Birattari |first2=Mauro |last3=Brambill |first3=Manuele |date=2014 |title=Swarm Robotics |journal=Scholarpedia |language=en-UK |volume=9 |issue=1 |page=1463 |bibcode=2014SchpJ...9.1463D |doi=10.4249/scholarpedia.1463 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="uav">H. Pan; M. Zahmatkesh; F. Rekabi-Bana; F. Arvin; J. Hu "[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10965835 T-STAR: Time-Optimal Swarm Trajectory Planning for Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles]" IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2025.</ref> This idea emerged on the field of [[artificial swarm intelligence]], as well as the studies of insects, ants and other fields in nature, where [[Swarm behaviour|swarm behavior]] occurs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nguyen |first=Luong Vuong |date=2 October 2024-12 |title=Swarm Intelligence-Based Multi-Robotics: A Comprehensive Review |url=https://www.mdpi.com/2673-9909/4/4/64 |journal=AppliedMath |language=en |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=1192–1210 |doi=10.3390/appliedmath4040064 |doi-access=free |issn=2673-9909 }}</ref>

Relatively simple individual rules can produce a large set of complex [[Swarm behaviour|swarm behaviors]]. A key component is the communication between the members of the group that build a system of constant feedback. The swarm behavior involves constant change of individuals in cooperation with others, as well as the behavior of the whole group.

Line 15 ⟶ 12:

# Robots are autonomous.

# Robots can interact with the surroundings and give feedback to modify the environment.

# Robots possess local perceiving and communicating capabilities, such as [[wireless]] transmission systems, like [[radio frequency]] or [[infrared]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Architectures and Control of Networked Robotic Systems |date=2013-05-29 |work=Handbook of Collective Robotics |pages=105–128 |editor-last=Kernbach |editor-first=Serge |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9789814364119/chapters/10.1201/b14908-6 |access-date=2024-12-04 |edition=0 |publisher=Jenny Stanford Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1201/b14908-6 |isbn=978-0-429-06759-4|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

# Robots do not exploit centralized swarm control or global knowledge.

# Robots cooperate with each other to accomplish the given task.<ref>{{Cite journal |lastlast1=Brambilla |firstfirst1=Manuele |last2=Ferrante |first2=Eliseo |last3=Birattari |first3=Mauro |last4=Dorigo |first4=Marco |date=17 January 2013-03 |title=Swarm robotics: a review from the swarm engineering perspective |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11721-012-0075-2 |journal=Swarm Intelligence |language=en |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=1–41 |doi=10.1007/s11721-012-0075-2 |hdl=2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/153305 |issn=1935-3812|hdl-access=free }}</ref>

</blockquote>Miniaturization is also key factor in swarm robotics, as the effect of thousands of small robots can maximize the effect of the swarm-intelligent approach to achieve meaningful behavior at swarm-level through a greater number of interactions on an individual level.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |lastlast1=Dorigo |firstfirst1=Marco |last2=Theraulaz |first2=Guy |last3=Trianni |first3=Vito |date=18 June 2021-07 |title=Swarm Robotics: Past, Present, and Future [Point of View] |url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9460560/ |journal=Proceedings of the IEEE |volume=109 |issue=7 |pages=1152–1165 |doi=10.1109/JPROC.2021.3072740 |issn=0018-9219|hdl=2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/326716 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Compared with individual robots, a swarm can commonly decompose its given missions to their subtasks;<ref>{{Cite journal |lastlast1=Hu |firstfirst1=Junyan |last2=Bhowmick |first2=Parijat |last3=Lanzon |first3=Alexander |date=2020-11-10 |title=Two‐layerTwo-layer distributed formation‐containmentformation-containment control strategy for linear swarm systems: Algorithm and experiments |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rnc.5105 |journal=International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control |language=en |volume=30 |issue=16 |pages=6433–6453 |doi=10.1002/rnc.5105 |issn=1049-8923|doi-access=free }}</ref> a swarm is more robust to partial failure and is more flexible with regard to different missions.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Autonomous mobile robots and multi-robot systems: motion-planning, communication and swarming |date=2020 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc |isbn=978-1-119-21286-7 |editor-last=Kagan |editor-first=Eugene |edition=First edition1st |___location=Hoboken, NJ}}</ref>

== History ==

The phrase "swarm robotics" was reported to make its first appearance in 1991 according to Google Scholar, but research regarding swarm robotics began to grow in early 2000s. The initial goal of studying swarm robotics was to test whether the concept of [[stigmergy]] could be used as a method for robots to indirectly communication and coordinate with each other.<ref name=":1" />

One of the first international projects regarding swarm robotics was the SWARM-BOTS project funded by the European Commission between 2001 and 2005, in which a swarm of up to 20 of robots capable of independently physically connect to each other to form a cooperating system were used to study swarm behaviors such as collective transport, area coverage, and searching for objects. The result was demonstration of self-organized teams of robots that cooperate to solve a complex task, with the robots in the swarm taking different roles over time. This work was then expanded upon through the Swarmanoid project (2006–2010), which extended the ideas and algorithms developed in Swarm-bots to heterogeneous robot swarms composed of three types of robots—flying, climbing, and ground-based—that collaborated to carry out a search and retrieval task.<ref name=":1" />

== Applications ==

There are many potential applications for swarm robotics.<ref>{{cite journalCitation |last1=Cheraghi |first1=Ahmad Reza |last2=Shahzad |first2=Sahdia |last3=Graffi |first3=Kalman |title=Past, Present, and Future of Swarm Robotics |date=2021-01-03 |arxiv=2101.00671 |last2=Shahzad |first2=Sahdia |last3=Graffi |first3=Kalman}}</ref> They include tasks that demand [[miniaturization]] ([[nanorobotics]], [[microbotics]]), like distributed sensing tasks in [[micromachinery]] or the human body. A promising use of swarm robotics is in [[rescue robot|search and rescue]] missions.<ref name="tvt">Hu, J.; Niu, H.; Carrasco, J.; Lennox, B.; Arvin, F., "[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9244647 Voronoi-Based Multi-Robot Autonomous Exploration in Unknown Environments via Deep Reinforcement Learning]" IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2020.</ref> Swarms of robots of different sizes could be sent to places that rescue-workers cannot reach safely, to explore the unknown environment and solve complex mazes via onboard sensors.<ref name="tvt" /> Swarm robotics can also be suited to tasks that demand cheap designs, for instance [[mining]] or agricultural shepherding tasks.<ref name="tcds">Hu, J.; Turgut, A.; Krajnik, T.; Lennox, B.; Arvin, F., "[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9173524 Occlusion-Based Coordination Protocol Design for Autonomous Robotic Shepherding Tasks]" IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 2020.</ref>

=== Drone swarms ===

[[File:3 1절 100주년 기념 100대 드론 군집비행 (4) (1155).png|alt=thumb|300x300px|A 100 drone swarm flight commemorating the 100th anniversary of the[[Korean Koreaindependence Aerospacemovement]] Research Institute|thumb|300x300px|A 100 drone swarm flight commemorating the 100th anniversary ofby the [[Korea Aerospace Research Institute]]]]

Drone swarms are used in target search, [[drone display]]s, and delivery. A drone display commonly uses multiple, lighted drones at night for an artistic display or advertising. A delivery drone swarm can carry multiple packages to a single destination at a time and overcome a single drone's payload and battery limitations.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Alkouz |first1=Balsam |title=2020 IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS) |last2=Bouguettaya |first2=Athman |last3=Mistry |first3=Sajib |date=Oct 18–24, 2020 |isbn=978-1-7281-8786-0 |pages=441–448 |chapter=Swarm-based Drone-as-a-Service (SDaaS) for Delivery |doi=10.1109/ICWS49710.2020.00065 |arxiv=2005.06952 |s2cid=218628807}}</ref> A drone swarm may undertake different [[Formation flying|flight formations]] to reduce overall energy consumption due to drag forces.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Alkouz |first1=Balsam |title=MobiQuitous 2020 - 17th EAI International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services |last2=Bouguettaya |first2=Athman |date=Dec 7–9, 2020 |isbn=9781450388405 |pages=386–394 |chapter=Formation-based Selection of Drone Swarm Services |doi=10.1145/3448891.3448899 |arxiv=2011.06766 |s2cid=226955877}}</ref>

Drone swarming can also introduce additional control issues connected to human factors and the swarm operator. Examples of this include high cognitive demand and complexity when interacting with multiple drones due to changing attention between different individual drones.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hocraffer |first1=Amy |last2=Nam |first2=Chang S. |date=2017 |title=A meta-analysis of human-system interfaces in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm management |journal=Applied Ergonomics |volume=58 |pages=66–80 |doi=10.1016/j.apergo.2016.05.011 |pmid=27633199}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lewis |first1=Michael |date=2013 |title=Human Interaction With Multiple Remote Robots |journal=Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=131–174 |doi=10.1177/1557234X13506688}}</ref> Communication between operator and swarm is also a central aspect.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kolling |first1=Andreas |last2=Phillip |first2=Walker |last3=Nilanjan |first3=Chakraborty |last4=Katia |first4=Sycara |last5=Michael |first5=Lewis |date=2016 |title=Human interaction with robot swarms: A survey |url=http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/28437/1/hms.pdf |journal=IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=9–26 |doi=10.1109/THMS.2015.2480801 |bibcode=2016ITHMS..46....9K |s2cid=9975315}}</ref>

=== Military swarms ===

Line 37 ⟶ 39:

=== Miniature swarms ===

Another large set of applications may be solved using swarms of [[micro air vehicle]]s, which are also broadly investigated nowadays. In comparison with the pioneering studies of swarms of flying robots using precise [[motion capture]] systems in laboratory conditions,<ref>Kushleyev, A.; Mellinger, D.; Powers, C.; Kumar, V., "[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b063/239bd450038531eeb2db5466eaed34a0f9a0.pdf Towards a swarm of agile micro quadrotors]" Autonomous Robots, Volume 35, Issue 4, pp 287-300, November 2013</ref> current systems such as [[Shooting Star (drone)|Shooting Star]] can control teams of hundreds of micro aerial vehicles in outdoor environment<ref>Vasarhelyi, G.; Virágh, C.; Tarcai, N.; Somorjai, G.; Vicsek, T. [https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.3588 Outdoor flocking and formation flight with autonomous aerial robots]. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2014), 2014</ref> using [[Satellite navigation|GNSS]] systems (such as GPS) or even stabilize them using onboard [[robot localization|localization]] systems<ref>Faigl, J.; Krajnik, T.; Chudoba, J.; Preucil, L.; Saska, M. [http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/13799/1/__ddat02_staffhome_jpartridge_camera_2013_ICRA.pdf Low-Cost Embedded System for Relative Localization in Robotic Swarms]. In ICRA2013: Proceedings of 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. 2013.</ref> where GPS is unavailable.<ref>Saska, M.; Vakula, J.; Preucil, L. [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6907374/ Swarms of Micro Aerial Vehicles Stabilized Under a Visual Relative Localization]. In ICRA2014: Proceedings of 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. 2014.</ref><ref>Saska, M. [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin_Saska/publication/282922149_MAV-swarms_Unmanned_aerial_vehicles_stabilized_along_a_given_path_using_onboard_relative_localization/links/5684f75b08ae19758394dcdf.pdf MAV-swarms: unmanned aerial vehicles stabilized along a given path using onboard relative localization]. In Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS). 2015</ref> Swarms of micro aerial vehicles have been already tested in tasks of autonomous surveillance,<ref>Saska, M.; Chudoba, J.; Preucil, L.; Thomas, J.; Loianno, G.; Tresnak, A.; Vonasek, V.; Kumar, V. [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6842301/ Autonomous Deployment of Swarms of Micro-Aerial Vehicles in Cooperative Surveillance]. In Proceedings of 2014 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS). 2014.</ref> plume tracking,<ref>Saska, M.; Langr J.; L. Preucil. [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin_Saska/publication/290558108_Plume_Tracking_by_a_Self-stabilized_Group_of_Micro_Aerial_Vehicles/links/57040e7908ae74a08e245eeb.pdf Plume Tracking by a Self-stabilized Group of Micro Aerial Vehicles]. In Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems, 2014.</ref> and reconnaissance in a compact phalanx.<ref>Saska, M.; Kasl, Z.; Preucil, L. [http://www.nt.ntnu.no/users/skoge/prost/proceedings/ifac2014/media/files/2295.pdf Motion Planning and Control of Formations of Micro Aerial Vehicles]. In Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control. 2014.</ref> Numerous works on cooperative swarms of unmanned ground and aerial vehicles have been conducted with target applications of cooperative environment monitoring,<ref>Saska, M.; Vonasek, V.; Krajnik, T.; Preucil, L. [http://labe.felk.cvut.cz/~tkrajnik/ardrone/articles/formace.pdf Coordination and Navigation of Heterogeneous UAVs-UGVs Teams Localized by a Hawk-Eye Approach] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810054531/http://labe.felk.cvut.cz/~tkrajnik/ardrone/articles/formace.pdf |date=2017-08-10 }}. In Proceedings of 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. 2012.</ref> [[simultaneous localization and mapping]],<ref>Chung, Soon-Jo, et al. "[https://authors.library.caltech.edu/87925/1/tro-aerial-robotics_final.pdf A survey on aerial swarm robotics]." IEEE Transactions on Robotics 34.4 (2018): 837-855.</ref> convoy protection,<ref>Saska, M.; Vonasek, V.; Krajnik, T.; Preucil, L. [http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/14891/1/formations_2014_IJRR.pdf Coordination and Navigation of Heterogeneous MAV–UGV Formations Localized by a ‘hawk-eye’-like Approach Under a Model Predictive Control Scheme]. International Journal of Robotics Research 33(10):1393–1412, September 2014.</ref> and moving target localization and tracking.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10846-011-9581-5 | doi=10.1007/s10846-011-9581-5 | title=A Robust Mobile Target Localization Method for Cooperative Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using Sensor Fusion Quality | date=2012 | last1=Kwon | first1=Hyukseong | last2=Pack | first2=Daniel J. | journal=Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems | volume=65 | issue=1–4 | pages=479–493 | s2cid=254656907 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==== Acoustic swarms ====