Bio-inspired self-organising multi-robot pattern formation: A review

Abstract

Self-organised emergent patterns can be widely seen in natural and man-made complex systems generated by interactions among local components without external or global control. This paper presents a survey of recent research advances in self-organising pattern formation in mobile multi-robot (or swarm robotic) systems. Relevant pattern formation methods are reviewed with a special focus on biologically-inspired self-organising approaches inspired from macroscopic collective behaviours or microscopic multicellular developing mechanisms. As the ultimate goal of this review is to provide insight into pattern formation using real robots, limitations and considerations on dealing with a large number of robots are discussed. In addition, guided self-organisation is also discussed as a design strategy where the swarm robotic system may be endowed with local rules for generating desired global patterns.