@article {Hunt2020b, title = {The Bayesian Superorganism: Collective Probability Estimation in Swarm Systems}, journal = {Artificial Life Conference Proceedings}, volume = {32}, year = {2020}, note = {doi: 10.1162/isal_a_00247}, month = {7}, pages = {315-323}, publisher = {MIT Press}, abstract = {Superorganisms such as social insect colonies are very successful relative to their non-social counterparts. Powerful emergent information processing capabilities would seem to contribute to the abundance of such ?swarm? systems, as they effectively explore and exploit their environment collectively. We develop a Bayesian model of collective information processing in a decision-making task: choosing a nest site (a ?multi-armed bandit? problem). House-hunting Temnothorax ants are adept at discovering and choosing the best available nest site for their colony: we propose that this is possible via rapid, decentralized estimation of the probability that each choice is best. Viewed this way, their behavioral algorithm can be understood as a statistical method that anticipates recent advances in mathematics. Our nest finding model incorporates insights from approximate Bayesian computation as a model of colony-level behavior; and particle filtering as a model of Temnothorax ?tandem running?. Our framework suggests that the mechanisms of complex collective behavior can sometimes be explained as a spatial enactment of Bayesian inference. It facilitates the generation of quantitative hypotheses regarding individual and collective movement behaviors when collective decisions must be made. It also points to the potential for bioinspired statistical techniques. Finally, it suggests simple mechanisms for collective decision-making in engineered systems, such as robot swarms.}, doi = {10.1162/isal_a_00247}, url = {https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isal_a_00247}, author = {Edmund R Hunt and Nigel R Franks and Roland J Baddeley} } @article {199, title = {Benchmark of Swarm Robotics Distributed Techniques in a Search Task}, journal = {Robotica}, volume = {32}, year = {2014}, month = {Oct.}, pages = {1017-1038}, author = {Couceiro MS and Portugal, D and Rocha, RP and Ferreira, NMF} } @article {201, title = {Benchmark of Swarm Robotics Distributed Techniques in a Search Task}, journal = {Robotics and Autonomous Systems}, volume = {62}, year = {2014}, month = {Feb.}, pages = {200-213}, author = {Couceiro, M.S. and Vargas, P. A. and Rocha, R. P. and Ferreira, N. M. F.} } @article {198, title = {Bridging the Reality Gap between the Webots Simulator and e-puck Robots}, journal = {Robotics and Autonomous Systems}, volume = {62}, year = {2014}, month = {Oct.}, pages = {1549{\textendash}1567}, author = {Couceiro, M C and Vargas, P A and Rocha, R P} } @article {141, title = {Bilateral Teleoperation of Groups of Mobile Robots with Time-Varying Topology}, journal = {IEEE Transaction on Robotics}, volume = {28}, year = {2012}, month = {10/2012}, pages = {1019 -1033}, abstract = {In this paper, a novel decentralized control strategy for bilaterally teleoperating heterogeneous groups of mobile robots from different domains (aerial, ground, marine and under- water) is proposed. By using a decentralized control architecture, the group of robots, treated as the slave-side, is made able to navigate in a cluttered environment while avoiding obstacles, inter-robot collisions and following the human motion commands. Simultaneously, the human operator acting on the master side is provided with a suitable force feedback informative of the group response and of the interaction with the surrounding environment. Using passivity based techniques, we allow the behavior of the group to be as flexible as possible with arbitrary split and join events (e.g., due to inter-robot visibility/packet losses or specific task requirements) while guaranteeing the stability of the system. We provide a rigorous analysis of the system stability and steady-state characteristics, and validate performance through human/hardware-in-the-tloop simulations by considering a heterogeneous fleet of UAVs and UGVs as case study. Finally, we also provide an experimental validation with 4 quadrotor UAV}, keywords = {Bilateral Shared Control of Mobile Robots, Decentralized control, Distributed algorithms, Force feedback, Haptics, Motion control of multiple robots, Multi-robot systems, Teleoperation}, author = {Antonio Franchi and Cristian Secchi and Hyoung Il Son and Heinrich H. B{\"u}lthoff and Paolo Robuffo Giordano} } @conference {154, title = {Biologically Inspired Stochastic Hybrid Control of Multi-Robot Systems}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR)}, year = {2003}, address = {Coimbra, Portugal}, author = {Dejan Milutinovi{\'c} and Pedro Lima and Michael Athans} }