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The Hidden Benefits of Limited Communication and Slow Sensing in Collective Monitoring of Dynamic Environments

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Swarm Intelligence (ANTS 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13491))

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Abstract

Most of our experiences, as well as our intuition, are usually built on a linear understanding of systems and processes. Complex systems in general, and more specifically swarm robotics in this context, leverage non-linear effects to self-organize and to ensure that ‘more is different’. In previous work, the non-linear and therefore counter-intuitive effect of ‘less is more’ was shown for a site-selection swarm scenario. Although it seems intuitive that being able to communicate over longer distances should be beneficial, swarms were found to sometimes profit from communication limitations. Here, we build on this work and show the same effect for the collective perception scenario in a dynamic environment. We also find an additional effect that we call ‘slower is faster’: in certain situations, swarms benefit from sampling their environment less frequently. Our findings are supported by an intensive empirical approach and a mean-field model. All our experimental work is based on simulations using the ARGoS simulator extended with a simulator of the smart environment for the Kilobot robot called Kilogrid.

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Notes

  1. 1.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Anthony Antoun, Marco Trabattoni, and Jonas Kuckling for technical support concerning Kilogrid and simulations on HPC. MD and AR acknowledge support from the Belgian F.R.S.-FNRS, of which they are Research Director and Chargé de Recherches, respectively.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Till Aust, Marco Dorigo & Andreagiovanni Reina

  2. Institute of Computer Engineering, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany

    Till Aust & Heiko Hamann

  3. Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

    Mohamed S. Talamali

Authors
  1. Till Aust
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  2. Mohamed S. Talamali
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  3. Marco Dorigo
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  4. Heiko Hamann
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  5. Andreagiovanni Reina
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Till Aust or Andreagiovanni Reina .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Marco Dorigo

  2. University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany

    Heiko Hamann

  3. University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Manuel López-Ibáñez

  4. University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain

    José García-Nieto

  5. Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Andries Engelbrecht

  6. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA

    Carlo Pinciroli

  7. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Volker Strobel

  8. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Christian Camacho-Villalón

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Aust, T., Talamali, M.S., Dorigo, M., Hamann, H., Reina, A. (2022). The Hidden Benefits of Limited Communication and Slow Sensing in Collective Monitoring of Dynamic Environments. In: Dorigo, M., et al. Swarm Intelligence. ANTS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13491. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20176-9_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20176-9_19

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-20176-9

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