A reliable distributed algorithm for group size estimation with minimal communication requirements

Abstract

This study proposes a method that lets individual robots in a group estimate the size of the group in a distributed manner.The process is loosely based on the signaling behavior of fireflies and crickets.Holland et al.first devised a method based on local robot signaling to estimate the group's size.Each robot emits a signal and can perceive the signals of neighboring robots in close proximity.Following the approach of Holland et al., our robots count the number of emitted signals over a suitably defined period of time.Experiments show that the estimates calculated with Holland et al.'s method display a great deal of noise.We modify their method so as to sensibly stabilize the output.We assess the quality of our method through extensive simulation-based experiments.