Foraging swarm robots system adopting honey bee swarm for improving energy efficiency

Abstract

We can efficiently collect crops or minerals by operating multi-robot foraging systems. As foraging spaces become wider, control algorithms require scalability and reliability. Swarm robotics is a state-of-the-art algorithm on wide foraging spaces due to its advantages, such as self-organization, robustness, and flexibility. However, high initial and operating cost are the main barriers in operating multi-robot foraging systems. In this paper, we propose a novel method to improve the energy efficiency of the system to reduce operating costs. The idea is to employ the behavior model of honey bee swarm inspired by a honey bee colony in nature.