Swarm Robotic Systems Based on Collective Behavior of Chloroplasts

Abstract

[abstFig src='/00290003/15.jpg' width='300' text='Swarming chloroplastic robots around light source' ] In this paper, distributed autonomous robots are used to perform area coverage tasks. In order for robots to cover the ground surface of environments, the coordination of a team of robots is a challenge. For this challenge, we present bio-inspired swarm robotic systems. We focus on the collective behavior of chloroplasts toward a light source. On the basis of the mechanism of the chloroplast, we propose robot behavior models that do not use local communication. The emergence of cooperative behavior through the interaction among the swarming robots is a main contribution of this paper. Based on simulation results, the effectiveness of the chloroplastic robots for the coverage task is discussed in terms of flexibility and scalability. Furthermore, the behavioral models are applied to actual mobile robots. Based on the results of experiments, the applicability of the chloroplastic robots to real environments is discussed. As an application of the swarm robotic system, a specific task, sweeping, is given to actual chloroplastic robots.