Pheromone communication: implementation of necrophoric bee behaviour in a robot swarm

Currently, there is great interest in learning about the behaviour of social insects, because of the valuable inspiration that they can provide in the area of swarm robotics. This paper reports the current progress of an investigation into the possibility of using pheromones as a means of communication between members of a robot swarm. In this project, interaction between members of a robot swarm is modeled on one form of pheromone communication that is used by social bees. In social bees this necrophoric behaviour is used to recognize a bee corpse within the nest and to remove it. In the context of a robot swarm one of the proposed applications for this behaviour is to locate and rescue disabled robots that release a pheromone as a form of distress signal. This paper describes the swarm robots used in this project, the robot control algorithm and results of practical experiments.