Repellent pheromones for effective swarm robot search in unknown environments

Abstract

In time-critical situations such as rescue missions, effective exploration is essential. Exploration of such unknown environments may be achieved through the dispersion of a swarm of robots. Recent research has turned to biology where pheromone trails provide a form of collective memory of visited areas. Rather than the attractive pheromones that have been the focus of much research, this paper considers locally distributed repellent pheromones. Further, the conditions for maximising search efficiency are investigated.