Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
actions by the swarm. Swarm intelligence represents a metaheuristic approach
to solving a wide range of problems.
Swarm robotics is the application of swarm intelligence techniques to
robotic devices. These systems are programmed to act much like insect swarms
where each robot senses and reacts to near-by robots as well as the environ-
ment with a given behavior. For example, each robot of an underwater swarm
may be watching and following a neighbor, but is also sensing its environ-
ment. When something of interest is found by one, it will communicate the
information to its neighbors and swim toward it. The others will follow the
new leader until they get to the object of interest and then swarm around and
examine it. It may be that only a portion of the swarm breaks off, forming
a subteam, while the others continue the swarm's search. When the subteam
is finished examining the object, they rejoin the team, so there is a constant
breaking off and rejoining by members of the swarm.
Swarms may also operate in a tight or loose group and move between
extremes depending on the current state of the mission. The group may be
tight not only physically, but also operationally. For example, during explo-
ration, the swarm may be scattered over a large area and communicate very
little while they each perform their searches. Then, when one finds something
of interest, it may broadcast information to inform the rest of the swarm.
Others may respond regarding something similar that has already been ex-
amined and a group of swarm members may work computationally close to
each other (even if they are physically separated) to determine whether it
should be further investigated. If so, a subteam would be dispatched to the
location and they would work cooperatively to obtain further information
(physically close).
10.2 Swarm Technologies at NASA
The Autonomous Nano Technology Swarm (ANTS) project was a joint NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and NASA Langley Research Center
(LARC) collaboration whose purpose was to develop revolutionary mission
architectures and exploit artificial intelligence techniques and paradigms in
future space exploration [
29
,
32
]. This project researched mission concepts
that could make use of swarm technologies for both spacecraft and surface-
based rovers.
ANTS consists of a number of mission concepts that include:
SMART
:
Super Miniaturized Addressable Reconfigurable Technology
uses
miniaturized robots based on tetrahedrons to form swarms of configurable
robots.
PAM
:
Prospecting Asteroid Mission
would also launch 1,000 pico-class space-
craft with the aim of exploring the asteroid belt and collecting data on
particular asteroids of interest. PAM is described below in more detail.
