Design and analysis of cooperative and non cooperative stigmergy-based models for foraging

Abstract

Swarm robotics is focused on implementation of systems which are composed of multiple simple robots rather than one single complex robot The challenge is to develop a group of robots with simple perception and communication capabilities in order to complete a task in a collective and distributed manner without central leader. In this paper, we present cooperative and non cooperative models for foraging that exploit stigmergy in the context of the classical Army Ant Raid model. Such models use the Stigmergic Multi-Ant Search Area (S-MASA) algorithm that produces a gradual search around the nest which provides less time for locating closest food and provides close-to-optimal paths using only the pheromone concentration. The proposed models have been evaluated under simulation with respect to models based on the reference c-marking algorithm. The obtained results show that the proposed models, specifically the cooperative one outperforms the c-marking based models both in obstacle-free and obstacle environments.