Efficient multi-foraging in swarm robotics

Abstract

In the multi-foraging task studied in this paper, a group of robots has to efficiently retrieve two different types of prey to a nest. Robots have to decide when they leave the nest to forage and which prey to retrieve.The goal of this study is to identify an efficient multi-foraging behaviour, where efficiency is defined as a function of the energy that is spent by the robots during exploration and gained when a prey is retrieved to the nest. We design and validate a mathematical model that is used to predict the optimal behaviour. We introduce a decision algorithm and use simulations to study its performance in a wide range of experimental situations with respect to the predictions of the mathematical model. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.