Simulation of Swarm Robot Flocking Assisted by Explicit Communication

Abstract

Flock-like motion has been intensively studied in swarm robotics. The aim of flocking is to make a formation of mobile robots involved, which is to mimic crowd and movement of animal behavior. In this paper, we simulate a flocking of mobile robots, which is guided by explicit communication via broadcast mechanism in wireless network. As the results, we analyze the effect of explicit communication in flocking behavior. The first is the ratio of broadcasted message to the flocking action. Second is to observe the connectedness of communication topology affected by flocking formation.