A honey bee swarm-inspired cooperation algorithm for foraging swarm robots: An empirical analysis

Abstract

Operating swarm robots has the virtues of improved performance, fault tolerance, distributed sensing, and so on. Although, high overall system cost is the main barrier in managing a system of foraging swarm robots. Moreover, its control algorithm should be scalable and reliable as the foraging (search) spaces become wider. This paper analyzes a nature-inspired cooperative method to reduce the operating costs of the foraging swarm robots through simulation experiments. The method employs a behavioral model of honey bee swarm to improve the energy efficiency in collecting crops or minerals. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.