Bio-inspired nest-site selection for distributing robots in low-communication environments

Abstract

We consider the problem of using only local communication to implement a distributed algorithm for large teams of mobile robots that searches space for locations of interest and distributes the robots across those locations according to quality. Toward this end, we take inspiration from insect societies that are able to coordinate without the use of pheromone trails. In particular, we focus on species that use only one-on-one local interactions to adaptively distribute scouts during nest-site selection tasks. Thus, there is a direct analogy between the insect communication mechanisms and peer-to-peer communication implementable in mobile, ad hoc networks of robots. Using chemical reaction networks as a conceptual bridge between behavioral descriptions from biology and event-triggered rules for robots, we develop a stochastic, biomimetic algorithm that achieves the desired goal. To validate our approach, we implement the algorithm on a large swarm of aerial, fixed-wing robots operating within the high-fidelity simulation package, SCRIMMAGE.