title: Multiscale modelling and analysis of collective decision making in swarm robotics.
abstract: We present a unified approach to describing certain types of collective decision making in swarm robotics that bridges from a microscopic individual-based description to aggregate properties. Our approach encompasses robot swarm experiments, microscopic and probabilistic macroscopic-discrete simulations as well as an analytic mathematical model. Following up on previous work, we identify the symmetry parameter, a measure of the progress of the swarm towards a decision, as a fundamental integrated swarm property and formulate its time evolution as a continuous-time Markov process. Contrary to previous work, which justified this approach only empirically and a posteriori, we justify it from first principles and derive hard limits on the parameter regime in which it is applicable.
authors.affiliation: FIT Centre for Research in Intelligent Systems, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vigelius
authors.affiliation: FIT Centre for Research in Intelligent Systems, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: FIT Centre for Research in Intelligent Systems, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pascoe
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003657:Decision Making; D004867:Equipment Design; D008390:Markov Chains; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*