This book provides an introduction to Swarm Robotics, which is the application of methods from swarm intelligence to robotics. It goes on to present methods that allow readers to understand how to design large-scale robot systems by going through many example scenarios on topics such as aggregation, coordinated motion (flocking), task allocation, self-assembly, collective construction, and environmental monitoring. The author explains the methodology behind building multiple, simple robots and how the complexity emerges from the multiple interactions between these robots such that they are able to solve difficult tasks. The book can be used as a short textbook for specialized courses or as an introduction to Swarm Robotics for graduate students, researchers, and professionals who want a concise introduction to the field.

In this book, a generic model in as far as possible mathematical closed-formis developed that predicts the behavior of large self-organizing robot groups (robot swarms) based on their control algorithm. In addition, an extensive subsumption of the relatively young and distinctive interdisciplinary research field of swarm robotics is emphasized. The connection to many related fields is highlighted and the concepts and methods borrowed from these fields are described shortly.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 2nd SAB 2006 International Workshop on Swarm Robotics held in Rome, Italy in September/October 2006 as a satellite event of SAB 2006, the 9th Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior. The 14 revised full papers are organized in topical sections on algorithms, modeling and analysis, hardware, and evolutionary approaches.

Studies on robotics applications have grown substantially in recent years, with swarm robotics being a relatively new area of research. Inspired by studies in swarm intelligence and robotics, swarm robotics facilitates interactions between robots as well as their interactions with the environment. The Handbook of Research on Design, Control, and Modeling of Swarm Robotics is a collection of the most important research achievements in swarm robotics thus far, covering the growing areas of design, control, and modeling of swarm robotics. This handbook serves as an essential resource for researchers, engineers, graduates, and senior undergraduates with interests in swarm robotics and its applications.

Collectively working robot teams can solve a problem more efficiently than a single robot, while also providing robustness and flexibility to the group. Swarm robotics model is a key component of a cooperative algorithm that controls the behaviors and interactions of all individuals. The robots in the swarm should have some basic functions, such as sensing, communicating, and monitoring, and satisfy the following properties: Autonomy—Individuals that create the swarm robotic system are autonomous robots. They are independent and can interact with each other and the environment.Large number—They are in large number, enabling cooperation.Scalability and robustness—A new unit can be easily added to the system, so the system can be easily scaled. A greater number of units improves the performance of the system. The system is quite robust to the loss of some units, as some units still remain to perform, although the system will not perform to its maximum capabilities.Decentralized coordination—The robots communicate with each other and with their environment to make final decisions.Flexibility—The swarm robotic system has the ability to generate modularized solutions to different tasks.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, held in Brussels, Belgium, in September 2014. This volume contains 17 full papers, 9 short papers, and 7 extended abstracts carefully selected out of 55 submissions. The papers cover empirical and theoretical research in swarm intelligence such as: behavioral models of social insects or other animal societies, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, swarm robotics systems.

This book focuses on the design and analysis of collective decision-making strategies for the best-of-n problem. After providing a formalization of the structure of the best-of-n problem supported by a comprehensive survey of the swarm robotics literature, it introduces the functioning of a collective decision-making strategy and identifies a set of mechanisms that are essential for a strategy to solve the best-of-n problem. The best-of-n problem is an abstraction that captures the frequent requirement of a robot swarm to choose one option from of a finite set when optimizing benefits and costs. The book leverages the identification of these mechanisms to develop a modular and model-driven methodology to design collective decision-making strategies and to analyze their performance at different level of abstractions. Lastly, the author provides a series of case studies in which the proposed methodology is used to design different strategies, using robot experiments to show how the designed strategies can be ported to different application scenarios.

Swarm robotics can be defined as the study of how a swarm of relatively simple physically embodied agents can be constructed to collectively accomplish tasks that are beyond the capabilities of a single one. Unlike other studies on multi-robot systems, swarm robotics emphasizes self-organization and emergence, while keeping in mind the issues of scalability and robustness. These emphases promote the use of relatively simple robots, equipped with localized sensing ability, scalable communication mechanisms, and the exploration of decentralized control strategies. This state-of-the-art survey is the first book devoted to swarm robotics. It is based on the First International Workshop on Swarm Robotics held in Santa Monica, CA, USA in July 2004 as part of SAB 2004

The 3rd Workshop on Formal Approaches to Agent-Based Systems (FAABS-III) was held at the Greenbelt Marriott Hotel (near NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) in April 2004 in conjunction with the IEEE Computer Society. The first FAABS workshop was help in April 2000 and the second in October 2002. Interest in agent-based systems continues to grow and this is seen in the wide range of conferences and journals that are addressing the research in this area as well as the prototype and developmental systems that are coming into use. Our third workshop, FAABS-III, was held in April, 2004. This volume contains the revised papers and posters presented at that workshop. The Organizing Committee was fortunate in having significant support in the planning and organization of these events, and were privileged to have wor- renowned keynote speakers Prof. J Moore (FAABS-I), Prof. Sir Roger Penrose (FAABS-II), and Prof. John McCarthy (FAABS-III), who spoke on the topic of se- aware computing systems, auguring perhaps a greater interest in autonomic computing as part of future FAABS events. We are grateful to all who attended the workshop, presented papers or posters, and participated in panel sessions and both formal and informal discussions to make the workshop a great success. Our thanks go to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Codes 588 and 581 (Software Engineering Laboratory) for their financial support and to the IEEE Computer Society (Technical Committee on Complexity in Computing) for their sponsorship and organizational assistance.