Balancing robot swarm cost and interference effects by varying robot quantity and size

摘要

Designing a robot swarm requires a swarm designer to understand the trade-offs unique to a swarm. The most basic design decisions are how many robots there should be in the swarm and the individual robot size. These choices in turn impact swarm cost and robot interference, and therefore swarm performance. The underlying physical reasons for why the number of robots and the individual robot size affect interference are explained in this work. A swarm interference function was developed and used to build an analytical basis for swarm performance. A swarm cost model was also developed and used with the analytical basis for swarm performance to generate performance cost curves for swarms with different numbers of robots and different robot sizes. The swarm designer can use this analytical basis, cost model, and these curves to weigh how the number of robots in the swarm and the individual robot size can be selected to minimize swarm cost and maximize swarm performance. This work is motivated by the desire to engineer a swarm to collect harmful algae from water. In this foraging application, the robots are not required to deposit algae in a central location. Stepping through the design process for this application has exposed several of the knowledge gaps addressed herein.