Hole Avoidance

In this chapter, we present a set of experiments that build upon the results on coordinated motion presented in the previous chapter. Also in this case, we study a coordination problem among the s-bots forming a swarm-bot. The physical connections among s-bots result in physical interactions that can be exploited for self-organisation of the swarm-bot. Additionally, s-bots are provided with a sound signalling system, that can be used for communication. The task we study requires the s-bots to explore an arena presenting holes in which the robots may fall. Individual s-bots cannot avoid holes due to their limited perceptual apparatus. On the contrary, a swarm-bot can exploit the physical connections and the communication among its components in order to safely navigate in the arena.

The rest of the chapter is organised as follows. In Section 7.1, we briefly overview the different forms of communication that can be found in social insects and in Section 7.2 we draw a parallel with collective robotics research. A taxonomy of different communication modalities is also introduced. In Section 7.3, we define the hole avoidance task and we give details about the experimental setup used for evolving cooperative behaviours. Section 7.4 shows the obtained results in simulation, while Section 7.5 describes the results obtained in transferring the evolved controllers on the real s-bots. Finally, Section 7.6 concludes the chapter.