A SoC for studying multi-agent software/algorithms on a real swarm of mm³-sized microrobots

Abstract

This paper presents a System On Chip (SoC) designed specifically to control a mm³- sized microrobot called I-SWARM. The robot is intended to be part of a colony of 1000 I-SWARM robots for studying swarm behavior in real time and in a real swarm. The SoC offers a well-suited hardware platform to run multi-agent systems software. It is composed of an 8051 microcontroller with 2 kB of data memory and 8 kB of program memory. The processor is provided with specific hardware modules for controlling the locomotion unit, the communications and the vibrating contact sensor of the robot. These modules perform basic tasks as movements or communications so the 8051 can focus on processing data and taking decisions. With these capabilities, the robot is able to avoiding collisions with other members of the swarm, performing cooperative tasks, sharing information and executing specialized tasks. The SoC has been fabricated with a 0.13 &mgr;m ultra low power CMOS process of STMicroelectronics and consumes less than 1 mW.