Nano-Net. Third International ICST Conference, NanoNet 2008, Boston, MA, USA, September 14-16, 2008, Revised Selected Papers

Research Article

Optical Networking in a Swarm of Microrobots

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-02427-6_19,
        author={Paolo Corradi and Thomas Schmickl and Oliver Scholz and Arianna Menciassi and Paolo Dario},
        title={Optical Networking in a Swarm of Microrobots},
        proceedings={Nano-Net. Third International ICST Conference, NanoNet 2008, Boston, MA, USA, September 14-16, 2008, Revised Selected Papers},
        proceedings_a={NANO-NET},
        year={2012},
        month={5},
        keywords={micro-optics optical communication microrobotics swarm intelligence},
        doi={10.1007/978-3-642-02427-6_19}
    }
    
  • Paolo Corradi
    Thomas Schmickl
    Oliver Scholz
    Arianna Menciassi
    Paolo Dario
    Year: 2012
    Optical Networking in a Swarm of Microrobots
    NANO-NET
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-02427-6_19
Paolo Corradi1,*, Thomas Schmickl2, Oliver Scholz, Arianna Menciassi1, Paolo Dario1
  • 1: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
  • 2: Karl-Franzens-University Graz
*Contact email: paolo.corradi@sssup.it

Abstract

Swarm Microrobotics aims to apply Swarm Intelligence algorithms and strategies to a large number of fabricated miniaturized autonomous or semi-autonomous agents, allowing collective, decentralized and self-organizing behaviors of the robots. The ability to establish basic information networking is fundamental in such swarm systems, where inter-robot communication is the base of emergent behaviors. Optical communication represents so far probably the only feasible and suitable solution for the constraints and requirements imposed by the development of a microrobotic swarm. This paper introduces a miniaturized optical communication module for millimeter-sized autonomous robots and presents a computer-simulated demonstration of its basic working principle to exploit bio-inspired swarm strategies.