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Foraging Robots

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Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science

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Definition of the Subject

Foraging robots are mobile robots capable of searching for and, when found, transporting objects to one or more collection points. Foraging robots may be single robots operating individually or multiple robots operating collectively. Single foraging robots may be remotely teleoperated or semiautonomous; multiple foraging robots are more likely to be fully autonomous systems. In robotics foraging is important for several reasons: firstly, it is a metaphor for a broad class of problems integrating exploration, navigation and object identification, manipulation, and transport; secondly, in multi-robot systems foraging is a canonical problem for the study of robot-robot cooperation; and thirdly, many actual or potential real-world applications for robotics are instances of foraging robots, for instance, cleaning, harvesting, search and rescue, land mine clearance, or planetary exploration.

Introduction

Foraging is a benchmark problem for robotics, especially for...

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Abbreviations

Autonomy:

In robotics autonomy conventionally refers to the degree to which a robot is able to make its own decisions about which actions to take next. Thus, a fully autonomous robot would be capable of carrying out its entire mission or function without human control or intervention. A semiautonomous robot would have a degree of autonomy but require some human supervision.

Behavior-based control:

Behavior-based control describes a class of robot control systems characterized by a set of conceptually independent task-achieving modules or behaviors. All task-achieving modules are able to access the robot’s sensors, and when a particular module becomes active, it is able to temporarily take control of the robot’s actuators (Arkin 1998).

Braitenberg vehicle:

In robotics a Braitenberg vehicle is a conceptual mobile robot in which simple sensors are connected directly to drive wheels. Thus if, for instance, a front-left-side sensor is connected to the right-side drive wheel and vice versa and then if the sensors are light sensitive, the robot will automatically steer towards a light source (Braitenberg 1984).

Finite state machine:

In the context of this entry, a finite state machine (FSM) is a model of robot behavior which has a fixed number of states. Each state represents a particular set of actions or behaviors. The robot can be in only one of these states at any given instant in time, and transitions between states may be triggered by either external or internal events.

Odometry:

Odometry refers to the technique of self-localization in which a robot measures how far it has traveled by, for instance, counting the revolutions of its wheels. Odometry suffers the problem that wheelslip leads to cumulative errors so odometric position estimates are generally inaccurate and of limited value unless combined with other localization techniques.

Robot:

In this entry the terms robot and mobile robot are used interchangeably. A mobile robot is a man-made device or vehicle capable of (1) sensing its environment and (2) purposefully moving through and acting upon or within that environment. A robot may be fully autonomous, semiautonomous, or teleoperated.

Swarm intelligence:

The term swarm intelligence describes the purposeful collective behaviors observed in nature, most dramatically in social insects. Swarm intelligence is the study of those collective behaviors, in both natural and artificial systems of multiple agents, and how they emerge from the local interactions of the agents with each other and with their environment (Bonabeau et al. 1999; Dorigo & Birattari 2007).

Teleoperation:

A robot is said to be teleoperated if it is remotely controlled by a human operator.

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Acknowledgments

The author is indebted to both Wenguo Liu and Guy Théraulaz for case studies, advice, and discussion during the preparation of this entry.

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  1. University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Alan F. T. Winfield

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  1. Alan F. T. Winfield
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Correspondence to Alan F. T. Winfield .

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    Robert A. Meyers

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Winfield, A.F.T. (2013). Foraging Robots. In: Meyers, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27737-5_217-4

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