Cooperative Search by Swarm Robots Based on Bacterial Foraging Optimization

Cooperative search by small swarm mobile robots using a bacterial foraging optimization via stigmergy algorithm is investigated in this paper. The simulated mobile robots reach their target by imitating the bacteria movement. Since the cooperative search with limited communication between the group members is one of the main purposes of this paper, the stigmergy method is used as communication mechanism. The stigmergy is communicating indirectly and is used for sharing information between the mobile robots. The robots put their information in the environment as bacteria. This mechanism helps the swarm to aggregate. Furthermore, the motion planning by the bacteria foraging optimization algorithm is changed so that the robot velocity is a function of the objective function values and kinematic and dynamic constraints are considered. The bacterial foraging optimization via stigmergy algorithm has been evaluated on some benchmark functions and the results show that the new method can provide superior performance to bacteria foraging optimization algorithm, particularly in terms of convergence rates and CPU time.