Aggregation through adaptive random walks in a minimalist robot swarm

In swarm robotics, random walks have proven to be efficient behaviours to explore unknown environments. By adapting the parameters of the random walk to environmental and social contingencies, it is possible to obtain interesting collective behaviours. In this paper, we introduce two novel aggregation behaviours based on different parameterisations of random walks tuned through numerical optimisation. Cue-based aggregation allows the swarm to reach the centre of an arena relying only on local discrete sampling, but does not guarantee the formation of a dense cluster. Neighbour-based aggregation instead allows the swarm to cluster in a single location based on the local detection of neighbours, but ignores the environmental cue. We then investigate a heterogeneous swarm made up of the two robot types. Results show that a trade-off can be found in terms of robot proportions to achieve cue-based aggregation while keeping the majority of the swarm in a single dense cluster.