Improving energy efficiency based on behavioral model in a swarm of cooperative foraging robots

Abstract

We can efficiently collect crops or minerals by operating multi-robot foraging. As foraging spaces become wider, control algorithms demand scalability and reliability. Swarm robotics is a state-of-the-art algorithm on wide foraging spaces due to its advantages, such as self-organization, robustness, and flexibility. However, high initial and operating cost are main barriers in operating multi-robot foraging system. In this paper, we propose a novel method to improve the energy efficiency of the system to reduce operating costs. The idea is to employ a new behavior model regarding role division in concert with the search space division.