A Scalable And Distributed Model for Self-organization and Self-healing

Michael Rubenstein and Wei-Min Shen. A Scalable And Distributed Model for Self-organization and Self-healing. In Proc. 2008 Intl. Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Estoril, Portugal, May 2008.

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Abstract

As the ability to produce a large number of small, simple robotic agents improves, it becomes essential to control the behavior of these agents in such a way that the sum of their actions gives rise to the desired overall result. These agents are modeled as homogeneous, distributed robots, with only one simple short range sensor. Our simple agents are tasked to form and hold a desired swarm shape, independent of the total number of agents. If this shape is damaged by the removal of some of the agents, the remaining agents will recover the former shape, but on a smaller scale. These shapes can also have a pattern such as a picture or drawing displayed on them by controlling the individual robots color, symbolically representing the differentiation of agents within the swarm. This pattern will resize to fit the existing swarm. With the ability to synchronize in time, the swarm gains the ability to change the pattern displayed, resulting in a moving image.

BibTeX Entry

@InProceedings{	  rubenstein2008a-scalable-and-distributed-model-for-self-organization-and-self-healing,
  abstract	= {As the ability to produce a large number of small, simple robotic
agents improves, it becomes essential to control the behavior of
these agents in such a way that the sum of their actions gives rise
to the desired overall result. These agents are modeled as
homogeneous, distributed robots, with only one simple short
range sensor. Our simple agents are tasked to form and hold a
desired swarm shape, independent of the total number of agents.
If this shape is damaged by the removal of some of the agents, the
remaining agents will recover the former shape, but on a smaller
scale. These shapes can also have a pattern such as a picture or
drawing displayed on them by controlling the individual robots
color, symbolically representing the differentiation of agents
within the swarm. This pattern will resize to fit the existing
swarm. With the ability to synchronize in time, the swarm gains
the ability to change the pattern displayed, resulting in a moving
image.},
  address	= {Estoril, Portugal},
  author	= {Michael Rubenstein and Wei-Min Shen},
  booktitle	= aamas-08,
  month		= may,
  title		= {A Scalable And Distributed Model for Self-organization and Self-healing},
  year		= {2008}
}