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Phase transitions in multi-robot interactions
Colin G. Johnson and Steven J. Brodie
In U. Nehmzow and C. Melhuish, editors, Towards Intelligent Mobile Robots - Proceedings of the 3rd British Conference on Autonomous Mobile Robotics and Autonomous Systems, University of Manchester Technical Reports volume UMCS-01-4-1, pages 182-196. University of Manchester, April 2001.Abstract
Phase transitions are where a small change in a parameter causes a qualitative change in the behaviour or state of a system. We can apply this concept to determining the connectivity of a population of mobile robots. Consider a population of mobile robots which can pass messages to other nearby robots. When the number of robots is small, or their working environment is large, robots will only be able to pass a message to a small number of others. However there is a point where if we increase the population by a small number, increase the communication range slightly, or reduce the working area by a small amount, the connectivity of the population increases suddenly to a point where almost all robots are communicating with each other. The consequences of this for multi-robot learning are discussed.
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@inproceedings{1210,
author = {Colin G. Johnson and Steven J. Brodie},
title = {Phase transitions in multi-robot interactions},
month = {April},
year = {2001},
pages = {182-196},
keywords = {determinacy analysis, Craig interpolants},
note = {},
doi = {},
url = {http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2001/1210},
publication_type = {inproceedings},
submission_id = {4064_995281559},
booktitle = {Towards Intelligent Mobile Robots - Proceedings of the 3rd British Conference on Autonomous Mobile Robotics and Autonomous Systems},
editor = {U. Nehmzow and C. Melhuish},
series = {University of Manchester Technical Reports volume UMCS-01-4-1},
organization = {University of Manchester},
ISSN = {1361-6161},
refereed = {yes},
}