title: An immune-inspired swarm aggregation algorithm for self-healing swarm robotic systems.
abstract: Swarm robotics is concerned with the decentralised coordination of multiple robots having only limited communication and interaction abilities. Although fault tolerance and robustness to individual robot failures have often been used to justify the use of swarm robotic systems, recent studies have shown that swarm robotic systems are susceptible to certain types of failure. In this paper we propose an approach to self-healing swarm robotic systems and take inspiration from the process of granuloma formation, a process of containment and repair found in the immune system. We use a case study of a swarm performing team work where previous works have demonstrated that partially failed robots have the most detrimental effect on overall swarm behaviour. We have developed an immune inspired approach that permits the recovery from certain failure modes during operation of the swarm, overcoming issues that effect swarm behaviour associated with partially failed robots.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK. Electronic address: jon.timmis@york.ac.uk.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Timmis
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Kulliyyah of ICT, International Islamic University Malaysia, P.O. Box 10, 50728 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Electronic address: amelia@iium.edu.my.
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Ismail
authors.affiliation: Kongsberg Defence Systems, P.O. Box 1003, NO-3601 Kongsberg, Norway. Electronic address: jan.dyre.bjerknes@kongsberg.com.
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Bjerknes
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Environment and Technology, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK. Electronic address: alan.winfield@uwe.ac.uk.
authors.forename: A F T
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Winfield
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D018925:Chemokines / Q000276:immunology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006099:Granuloma / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D007107:Immune System / Q000276:immunology*; D008264:Macrophages / Q000276:immunology; D018448:Models, Immunological; D012371:Robotics; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D018925:Chemokines
keywords: Artificial immune systems; Self-repair; Swarm robotics