Economic Aspects of a Real-world Ecosystem Featuring Several Robot Species

We describe an artiicial ecosystem consisting of several robots of diier-ent species. The robots are truly autonomous since they carry secondary batteries that they can recharge themselves. In addition, they are truly heterogeneous since they diier not only in simple factors like size and weight, but also in respect to functionality and complexity. For example, some have very basic sensors, others vision; some can access electrical energy directly from a charging-station, others need to cooperate. The quest for energy is the force that joins the diierent robots into the one concept of an ecosystem. This concept bears close relations to economics. On one hand, economic models and tools are useful to design robot behaviors and to describe processes in the system. On the other hand, the ecosystem is an interesting tool for economics to test the validity of models and to develop new ones. The main advantages of our setting are that it is complex and embedded in the real-world but it still provides the possibility of controlled changes and \playing around". In this paper we especially address the problems involved with potential forms of cooperation between the diierent agents. In doing so, we present technical and conceptual drawbacks as well as a solution based on the introduction of a medium of exchange in the form of symbolic money.