An Analysis of Collective Movement Models for Robotic Swarms

A swarm is defined as a set of two or more independent homogeneous or heterogeneous agents acting in a common environment, in a coherent fashion, and which generates emergent behavior. The creation of artificial swarms or robotic swarms has attracted many researchers in the last two decades. Many studies have been undertaken using practical approaches to swarm construction such as investigating the navigation of the swarm, task allocation and elementary construction. This paper examines aggregations that emerge from three different movement models of relatively simple agents. The agents only differ in their maximum turning angle and their sensing range.