Emergent Behavior in a Collection of Simple Robots
Authors:
Dylan Allbee, Michael CaldwellMentor:
Paul Dixon, Professor of Physics, California State University San BernardinoEmergent Behavior in a Collection of Simple Robots Authors: Dylan S. Allbee and Michael J. Caldwell, California State University San Bernardino Mentor: Paul K. Dixon We describe a study of emergent patterns using NXT mindstorm robots. The study of emergent patterns has been broken down into two parts. Part one is to study patterns and behaviors with a small number of physical robots and then, in part two, we scale up to a simulation where a larger number of robots can be used. These autonomous robots have been designed to explore a defined space and form spontaneous linear chains using a simple behavior algorithm. This behavior, commonly known as elephant walking, can then be scaled up in simulation. With this simulation we can further study the emergent behavior, observing the resulting patterns in response to changing the number of robots, the size and shape of the environment they are in, and how certain flaws or noise affect the group dynamics.