Efficient Multi-foraging in Swarm Robotics

In the multi-foraging task under study, a group of robots has to efficiently retrieve two different types of prey to a nest. We define efficiency using a concept of energy that is spent by the robots when they leave the nest to explore the environment and gained when a prey is successfully retrieved to the nest. The goal of this study is to identify the characteristics of an efficient multi-foraging behaviour. We design and validate a mathematical model that is used to predict the optimal behaviour. This model allows us to evaluate the performance of a group of robots on an absolute scale. We design a decision algorithm and study its performance and adaptivity in a wide range of experimental situations. This algorithm takes into account information about the number of prey encountered but also about the number of robots encountered, so that a suitable number of robots are allocated to foraging while the remaining robots rest at the nest and spare energy.