Quantitative information in sematectonic stigmergy for swarm robots

This paper considers the benefits of transferring quantitative information represented by changes of their environment between members of a robot swarm. This form of communication is an example of sematectonic stigmergy, a type of indirect communication. The work has been partially inspired by colonies of weaver ants and their nest building task. It is conjectured that even if members of a swarm are not directly aware of the other swarm members, they can still cooperate with each other. They can do this by gaining information via changes of their working environment, which are caused by other members. This kind of information transfer is called sematectonic stigmergy. Another important aspect of sematectonic stigmergy investigated in this project is the transfer of multi-level information, which is very helpful for many possible swarm robotic tasks. The ideas developed in this paper are confirmed by a series of physical experiment with W-AntBots (Weaver Ant Bots).