Swarm Foraging Review: Closing the Gap Between Proof and Practice

Authors

Qi Lu, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
G. Matthew Fricke
John C. Ericksen
Melanie E. Moses

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2020

Abstract

Purpose of Review

We review recent research on swarm robot foraging and contextualize it with foundational work. Recent work can be divided into two complementary camps: self-organizing algorithms that provide practical gains and analytical research focus on theoretical proofs.

Recent Findings

Encouragingly, the convergence between theory and practice is evident in analytical work on the scaling of transportation networks and in behavioral grammars that give formal insight into emergent properties of foraging. Augmented reality has enabled virtual pheromones to be used with hardware, blurring the line between physical and simulation experiments.

Summary

In this review we highlight bio-inspired and self-organizing approaches to swarm foraging and contrast them with approaches that can provide theoretical proofs, but which abstract away important features from foraging in real-world environments.

Comments

Copyright © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Recommended Citation

Lu, Qi, G. Matthew Fricke, John C. Ericksen, and Melanie E. Moses. "Swarm foraging review: Closing the gap between proof and practice." Current Robotics Reports 1 (2020): 215-225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43154-020-00018-1

Publication Title

Current Robotics Reports

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s43154-020-00018-1