Artificial Life and Robotics最新文献

{"title":"Distributed and decentralized task allocation for heterogeneous swarms","authors":"Yigal Koifman,&nbsp;Ariel Barel,&nbsp;Alfred M. Bruckstein","doi":"10.1007/s10015-025-01104-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-025-01104-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper presents a multi-layered framework for fully distributed and decentralized task allocation in heterogeneous swarms, derived from interaction-based dynamics. This approach is built upon a baseline of homogeneous swarms composed of simple, autonomous, identical, locally sensing agents. Agents operate under the “flexible swarm” paradigm, which promotes global cohesion through local interactions that prevent swarm fragmentation. We demonstrate how a desired swarm behavior of exploration, task detection, and requirement fulfillment can emerge from local motion rules based solely on self-sensing without explicit inter-agent communication. Starting from a homogeneous baseline of identical agents, we extend the framework to heterogeneous swarms composed of agents with varying sensing capabilities and payloads. We introduce a novel interaction scheme in which two homogeneous groups, scouts and fire-extinguishers, are functionally coupled through local sensing, forming an emergent heterogeneous system. This coupled coordination enables distributed fire detection and suppression, enhancing robustness and scalability. The framework is validated through firefighting simulations, utilizing a heterogeneous swarm composed of scout agents with long-range sensing and fire-extinguishing agents with limited perception and actuation abilities. Through simple local motion rules, agents self-organize to detect and extinguish fires in a cooperative manner, driven solely by local sensing and interaction forces. Various fire suppression simulations demonstrate clear trade-offs between scouting and fire-extinguishing capacities. Our simulation results show that scouting dominates overall performance, whereas adding more fire-extinguishers provides only marginal improvement beyond a critical ratio. The results demonstrate that decentralized control of heterogeneous swarms enhances scalability, robustness, and efficiency even under direct communication denial. A simulation video demonstrating the proposed framework, illustrating the emergent coordination, task allocation dynamics, and analysis of a specific scenario, is available at https://youtu.be/dZqVxlhhzYc.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 1","pages":"302 - 316"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10015-025-01104-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147342435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"3D-LiDAR point cloud data classification using deep learning for mobile robots","authors":"Abhijeet Ravankar,&nbsp;Ankit A. Ravankar,&nbsp;Arpit Rawankar","doi":"10.1007/s10015-026-01115-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-026-01115-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Navigation is an essential component of mobile robots. Typically, robots are equipped with visual sensors to identify objects in the vicinity for obstacle avoidance. However, visual sensors have several limitations like performance degradation in low illumination or depth perception. 3D LiDARs with many layers (32, 64, or 128), which generate dense point cloud data (PCD), have shown good performance in object detection to overcome such limitations. However, 3D LiDARs with fewer layers generate sparse data which are difficult for object detection. In this paper, sparse point cloud data are used for object identification using deep learning. Sparse PCD collected for different obstacles (person, multiple person, bicycle, and person walking with mobile) in left–right, and forward–backward configurations is augmented and passed into an neural network for identification. For robust testing, we have also included common immovable objects like chair. We achieved good results with sparse PCD for different obstacle configurations. The network can not only identify the type of obstacle but also the direction in which the obstacle is approaching. This information enables the robot path planner to make intelligent decisions for collision-free path planning. Data were collected using actual sensor and classification results are discussed.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 2","pages":"433 - 440"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147938441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Research on the implementation of cooperative behavior in actual autonomous mobile robots aimed at eliminating the reality gap","authors":"Masanori Goka,&nbsp;Rikimaru Murakami,&nbsp;Shodai Kawaue","doi":"10.1007/s10015-025-01107-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-025-01107-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Swarm robotics, which mimics the swarm behavior observed in social insects, such as ants and bees, inherently requires a large number of robots due to its nature. While experiments can be conducted relatively easily in computer simulations, the maintenance and cost of operating multiple robots simultaneously in the real world remain a major challenge. In this study, we propose a small, autonomous mobile robot, fabricated using a 3D printer, that is not only cost-effective but also designed for easy replacement of parts in the event of failure. Furthermore, we aim to realize cooperative behavior that bridges the gap between simulations and real-world experiments.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 1","pages":"177 - 184"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147341050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Special issue on Swarm Behavior and Bio-Inspired Robotics","authors":"Fumitoshi Matsuno","doi":"10.1007/s10015-026-01114-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-026-01114-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147341351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Online optimization of pickup and delivery problems considering accident recovery forecast","authors":"Soma Nakagawa,&nbsp;Koichi Kobayashi,&nbsp;Yuh Yamashita","doi":"10.1007/s10015-025-01101-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-025-01101-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper, online optimization of the pickup and delivery problem is studied. In particular, we focus on incorporating an accident recovery forecast. First, the target area is modeled by a set of graphs. Next, constraints and cost functions are introduced. Then, the pickup and delivery problem is rewritten as a mixed integer linear programming problem. Finally, we provide numerical examples illustrating the computational results under accident scenarios with the incorporation of an accident recovery forecast.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 1","pages":"347 - 355"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147340491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Affordance-driven symbol network construction via large language models","authors":"Kazuma Arii,&nbsp;Shunsuke Liu,&nbsp;Satoshi Kurihara","doi":"10.1007/s10015-025-01106-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-025-01106-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>To enable robots to coexist with humans in dynamic real-world environments, they must possess both autonomy and versatility. Such autonomy requires the ability to interpret situations and select appropriate actions, which goes beyond simple image recognition. Humans rely on common sense and “affordances”—perceived action possibilities in a given context—to determine behavior. For example, the presence of an apple on a plate may lead to different reactions depending on its placement. While recent advancements in object detection models like YOLO have enabled AI to recognize and relate objects, these systems lack affordance information and thus struggle with situational understanding. Affordances are a form of implicit knowledge closely tied to human common sense, making them difficult for conventional AI to process. However, large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, which have been trained on vast human-generated texts, may possess a form of embedded common sense. Building on this, we propose a method for automatically acquiring affordances from symbols using LLM outputs. Our method involves three steps: generating descriptive text via LLMs, analyzing it through morphological and dependency parsing to reconstruct a symbol network, and then calculating affordances based on the network’s structure. An initial experiment using the object “apple” demonstrated the ability to extract scene-specific affordances with high explainability. Ultimately, this approach enables affordance re-cognition in a manner similar to human reasoning.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 2","pages":"547 - 561"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10015-025-01106-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147938647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cooperative sensor-display interfaces on a super general-purpose SoC","authors":"Hibiki Shinozaki,&nbsp;Akira Yamawaki","doi":"10.1007/s10015-025-01109-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-025-01109-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The rapid growth of the internet of things (IoT) has increased product diversity, while the design cost of new system-on-chip (SoC) solutions continues to escalate. To address this challenge, we previously proposed a super gEneral-Purpose sOC (EPoC) that equips virtual hardware interfaces independent of peripheral specifications and can be dynamically reconfigured at runtime. This framework enables a single SoC to flexibly support diverse devices, promotes the reuse of design assets, reduces development costs, and provides a versatile design methodology applicable to robotics, IoT systems, and other embedded domains. By leveraging high-level synthesis, EPoC facilitates the rapid development of dedicated interfaces for heterogeneous peripherals. In our prior work, its feasibility was validated with a sensor interface. In this paper, we extend the applicability of EPoC by implementing hardware interfaces for an ILI9341 display and a TSC2046 touch panel, and by constructing a sprite-based image movement system that integrates these devices with a 9-axis sensor. Such cooperative processing of sensor input and display output can also be applied to robotic systems, for example in intuitive human–machine interfaces where sensor data are visualized in real time and user input is provided through touch interaction. Experimental results on actual equipment demonstrate significant performance improvements and reduced development effort, confirming both the practicality and versatility of the EPoC framework.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 2","pages":"378 - 388"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147938130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Millipedes suggest decentralized trunk–limb coordination control is essential for inter-limb coordination in many-legged locomotion","authors":"Kotaro Yasui,&nbsp;Tatsumi Yamaichi,&nbsp;Akio Ishiguro","doi":"10.1007/s10015-025-01113-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-025-01113-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Many-legged arthropods, such as myriapods, exhibit coordinated stepping patterns during walking. Although they are known to use similar inter-limb coordination patterns across species, it remains elusive whether common control principles exist for many-legged locomotion. To address this issue, we observed millipede walking and found that subtle trunk-pitch bending, coordinated with leg movements, sometimes appears. Drawing inspiration from this finding, we hypothesized that inter-limb coordination in many-legged locomotion could be generated via trunk–limb coordination control. To test this hypothesis, we constructed a neuro-mechanical model of many-legged animals and proposed a simple trunk–limb coordination control based on local sensory feedback. In simulations, we verified that our model can reproduce the inter-limb coordination of many-legged arthropods with various leg numbers. We expect that our model will provide new insights into the control principles underlying many-legged locomotion.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 1","pages":"34 - 45"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10015-025-01113-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147338066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Toward understanding the principles of animal behaviors: a systems ethology approach","authors":"Hayato M. Yamanouchi,&nbsp;Yusuke Notomi,&nbsp;Shumpei Hisamoto","doi":"10.1007/s10015-025-01112-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-025-01112-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We propose <i>Systems Ethology</i> as a research discipline in animal behavior science to reassert the value of a holistic ethological perspective. Drawing on the core principles of systems biology, <i>Systems Ethology</i> seeks to interpret animal behavior as an integrated, dynamic system. As subfields within behavior research have become increasingly specialized, the need for an approach that unifies multiple disciplines and accommodates a broader range of behavioral systems across their hierarchy has intensified. Recent advances in experimental and analytical techniques have also expanded the feasibility of studying diverse species, including nonmodel animals. By introducing a systems-oriented perspective to ethology, we aim to encourage critical reflection on the future direction of ethological research.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 2","pages":"475 - 483"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147938207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Learning a unified fault-tolerant gait policy for quadruped robots under single-joint sudden free-swinging failures","authors":"Keisuke Matsuura,&nbsp;Noritaka Sato","doi":"10.1007/s10015-025-01110-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10015-025-01110-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In recent years, quadruped robots have been expected to play an active role in urgent missions such as search and rescue operations in disaster sites. However, sudden joint failures in such harsh environments remain a significant challenge. In particular, a <i>free-swinging joint failure</i> (<i>FSJF</i>), in which the actuator completely loses torque and the joint rotates freely under external forces and gravity, is a severe failure that makes posture stabilization extremely difficult. Despite its frequent occurrence in real-world environments, most previous studies have primarily focused on <i>locking failures</i>, leaving FSJFs insufficiently addressed. In this study, we focus on the scenario in which “any single joint suddenly fails” in a quadruped robot and develop fault-tolerant locomotion using deep reinforcement learning. Specifically, we incorporate the failure state as an input parameter and train a single model capable of handling FSJFs across all 12 joints. Simulation experiments demonstrated that the learned policy successfully avoided falls and maintained locomotion with a high success rate, even when FSJFs occurred at random timings during walking. Furthermore, we analyzed the post-failure locomotion behavior for each joint, providing insights that will contribute to the design of future fault-tolerant control strategies. These results highlight the importance of ensuring high reliability, particularly mission continuity for quadruped robots, and provide a useful foundation for real-world applications.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46050,"journal":{"name":"Artificial Life and Robotics","volume":"31 2","pages":"405 - 417"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147938208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}