A reliable distributed algorithm for group size estimation with minimal communication requirements

This study proposes a method that lets individual robots in a group estimate the size of the group in a distributed manner. The process is loosely based on the signaling behavior of fireflies and crickets. Holland et al. first devised a method based on local robot signaling to estimate the group´s size. Each robot emits a signal and can perceive the signals of neighboring robots in close proximity. Following the approach of Holland et al., our robots count the number of emitted signals over a suitably defined period of time. Experiments show that the estimates calculated with Holland et al.´s method display a great deal of noise. We modify their method so as to sensibly stabilize the output. We assess the quality of our method through extensive simulation-based experiments.