In this paper, after introducing a new hybrid algorithm based on Swarm Intelligence, the performance of the newly architectured algorithm is evaluated on a set of autonomous robots (Mr Confused Household robots). The goal of the autonomous robots is to agree on a task and, despite the inevitable existence of “organic” noise in the system, accomplish the mission through communication.

Communication  – social interaction or information exchange – observed in social insects is important in all swarm intelligence algorithms, including Stochastic Diffusion Search (SDS) [Bishop, 1989]. Although as stated in [Kennedy, James, Eberhart, 2001], in real social interactions, not just the syntactical information is exchanged between the individuals but also semantic rules and beliefs about how to process this information, in swarm intelligence algorithms only the syntactical exchange of information is considered.

There are different forms of recruitment in social insects: it may take the form of local or global, one-to-one or one-to-many, and stochastic or deterministic mode. The nature of information exchange also varies in different environments and with different types of social insects. Sometimes, the information exchange is more complex where, for example, it might carry data about the direction, suitability of the target and the distance; sometimes the information sharing is simply a stimulation forcing a certain triggered action. What all these recruitment and information exchange strategies have in common is distributing useful information in their community [DeMeyer, Nasuto, Bishop, 2006].

In this paper, the behaviour of the robots are explained according to the Mining Game metaphor (for details about this metaphor read [alRifaie, 2010]), which provides a simple high-level description of the behaviour of agents in SDS.

This paper is based on a project that involves the use of autonomous swarm robots to evaluate their interactions in the physical world. The main communication channel (one-to-one/one-to-many) is going to be through singing inspired by birds’ language. The goal of this project is to study and demonstrate the behaviour of swarm robots using decentralised control mechanism, where intelligence emerges through the interaction and communication among the robots rather than just by the endeavour of one individual robot.

• Dr. Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie, PhD research student and Visiting Tutor at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
• Ahmed Aber, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK
• Remigijus Raisys  [ISEA2011 provided no biographical information]

Full text (PDF) p. 65-71