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Virtual pheromone map building and a utilization method for a multi-purpose swarm robot system

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  • Robotics and Automation
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Abstract

Swarm robotics is an approach to realizing an intelligent system using swarm intelligence that emerges from complex interactions among individual robots. To implement a swarm robot system requires an efficient method for sharing and utilizing the information that is gathered by multiple robots. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to gather, simplify, share, and use the information in a multi-purpose swarm robot system. To minimize communications traffic among the robots, we use a graph-based map-building method. Furthermore, the nodes on the graph include information about the environment for control and interaction among the robots. We refer to this graph-based map as a virtual pheromone map. We propose an efficient algorithm to build a virtual pheromone map with low communications traffic and without contradictions using error-included sensors. The utilization method of the virtual pheromone map is efficient for implementing the interactions among the robots. The proposed algorithms are validated by a computer simulation. The result of the simulation shows that the virtual pheromone map-based swarm robot system works efficiently from the effects of swarm intelligence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical Engineering, Pusan National University, Jangjeon 2-dong, Geomjeong-gu, Busan, 609-735, Korea

    Woo-Sung Moon, Jin-Won Jang, Han-Sol Kim & Kwang-Ryul Baek

Authors
  1. Woo-Sung Moon
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  2. Jin-Won Jang
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  3. Han-Sol Kim
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  4. Kwang-Ryul Baek
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kwang-Ryul Baek.

Additional information

Recommended by Associate Editor Hongbo Li under the direction of Editor Hyouk Ryeol Choi.

This work was supported by BK21PLUS, Creative Human Resource Development Program for IT Convergence.

Woo-Sung Moon received his BS in 2007 and his MS in 2009 and is currently working toward a Ph.D. in the School of Electrical Engineering, Pusan National University. His research interests include collective intelligent systems.

Woo-Sung Moon received his BS in 2007 and his MS in 2009 and is currently working toward a Ph.D. in the School of Electrical Engineering, Pusan National University. His research interests include collective intelligent systems.

Jin-Won Jang received his BS in 2005 and his MS in 2007 and is currently working toward a Ph.D. in the School of Electrical Engineering, Pusan National University. His research interests include vision systems and adaptive control.

Han-Sol Kim received his BS in 2011 and his MS in 2013 and is currently working toward a Ph.D. in the School of Electrical Engineering, Pusan National University. His research interests include digital signal processing and control systems.

Kwang-Ryul Baek received his BS in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from Pusan National University in 1984. He received his MS and Ph.D. from KAIST. He joined Turbotech Company as the head of development from 1989 to 1994. Now, he is a professor at Pusan National University. His research interests include digital signal processing, control systems, and high-speed circuit systems.

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Moon, WS., Jang, JW., Kim, HS. et al. Virtual pheromone map building and a utilization method for a multi-purpose swarm robot system. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 13, 1446–1453 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-013-0431-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-013-0431-z

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