Modeling and Simulation Approaches to Swarm Robotic Systems

Abstract

Concentrating on the desirable properties of swarm robotic systems, some key problems in swarm robotics such as limited sense, local interaction, communication among individuals and with environment, cooperation control and self-organization as well as pattern formation were discussed for the sake of getting an insight into sources and development of swarm robotics and understanding the criteria used to distinguish swarm robotics research from other multi-robot studies. To discern the research emphasis on swarm robotics, the disciplinary profile and existing research findings were described. Then, the main modeling and simulation methods of swarm robotics were summarized. Finally, this survey shows that large numbers of relatively simple robots with limited sense capabilities and local interaction mechanism may emerge swarm intelligence to handle those prescribed complex tasks in scalable manner.