title: Social integration of robots into groups of cockroaches to control self-organized choices.
abstract: Collective behavior based on self-organization has been shown in group-living animals from insects to vertebrates. These findings have stimulated engineers to investigate approaches for the coordination of autonomous multirobot systems based on self-organization. In this experimental study, we show collective decision-making by mixed groups of cockroaches and socially integrated autonomous robots, leading to shared shelter selection. Individuals, natural or artificial, are perceived as equivalent, and the collective decision emerges from nonlinear feedbacks based on local interactions. Even when in the minority, robots can modulate the collective decision-making process and produce a global pattern not observed in their absence. These results demonstrate the possibility of using intelligent autonomous devices to study and control self-organized behavioral patterns in group-living animals.
authors.affiliation: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Service d'Ecologie Sociale CP231, Avenue F. D. Roosevelt, 50, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. jhalloy@ulb.ac.be
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Halloy
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sempo
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Caprari
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rivault
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asadpour
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tâche
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Saïd
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Durier
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Canonge
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Amé
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Detrain
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Correll
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martinoli
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mondada
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Siegwart
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Deneubourg
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D010526:Periplaneta / Q000502:physiology*; D012371:Robotics; D012919:Social Behavior