Alan Winfield's Outputs (82)

Individual, social and evolutionary adaptation in collective systems (2013)
Book Chapter

Distributed autonomous morphogenesis in a self-assembling robotic system (2012)
Book Chapter

We present distributed morphogenesis control strategies in a swarm of robots able to autonomously assemble into 3D symbiotic organisms to perform specific tasks. Each robot in such a system can work autonomously, while teams of robots can self-assemb... Read More about Distributed autonomous morphogenesis in a self-assembling robotic system.

On fault tolerance and scalability of swarm robotic systems (2012)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper challenges the common assumption that swarm robotic systems are robust and scalable by default. We present an analysis based on both reliability modelling and experimental trials of a case study swarm performing team work, in which failure... Read More about On fault tolerance and scalability of swarm robotic systems.

Self-assembly in heterogeneous modular robots (2012)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper describes the distributed self-assembly of a multi-robot ‘organism’ from a swarm of autonomous heterogeneous modular mobile robots. A distributed self-assembly strategy based on a symbol sequence representation is proposed. Constructed fro... Read More about Self-assembly in heterogeneous modular robots.

Environment-driven distributed evolutionary adaptation in a population of autonomous robotic agents (2012)
Journal Article

This article is concerned with a fixed-size population of autonomous agents facing unknown, possibly changing, environments. The motivation is to design an embodied evolutionary algorithm that can cope with the implicit fitness function hidden in the... Read More about Environment-driven distributed evolutionary adaptation in a population of autonomous robotic agents.

Emergent swarm morphology control of wireless networked mobile robots (2012)
Book Chapter

We describe a new class of decentralised control algorithms that link local wireless connectivity to low-level robot motion control in order to maintain both swarm aggregation and connectivity, which we term “coherence”, in unbounded space. We invest... Read More about Emergent swarm morphology control of wireless networked mobile robots.

Autonomous morphogenesis in self-assembling robots using IR-based sensing and local communications (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper presents a simple decentralised morphology control mechanism for a swarm of self-assembling robots. Each robot in the system is fully autonomous and controlled using a behaviour-based approach with only infrared-based local sensing and com... Read More about Autonomous morphogenesis in self-assembling robots using IR-based sensing and local communications.

Modeling and optimization of adaptive foraging in swarm robotic systems (2010)
Journal Article

Understanding the effect of individual parameters on the collective performance of swarm robotic systems in order to design and optimize individual robot behaviors is a significant challenge. In this paper we present a macroscopic probabilistic model... Read More about Modeling and optimization of adaptive foraging in swarm robotic systems.

Safety control architecture for personal robots: Behavioural suppression with deliberative control (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper presents a novel robot control architecture for use with personal robots, and argues its potential for improving the safety of these types of system, when compared to existing approaches. The proposed architecture design separates the cont... Read More about Safety control architecture for personal robots: Behavioural suppression with deliberative control.

Towards accelerated distributed evolution for adaptive behaviours in swarm robotics (2010)
Book Chapter

The major problem facing swarm robotics is that of design. A recent promising approach is the application of evolutionary algorithms to solve the problem of decomposing group behaviour to that of interacting individual behaviours. This paper presents... Read More about Towards accelerated distributed evolution for adaptive behaviours in swarm robotics.

Foraging robots (2009)
Book Chapter

A macroscopic probabilistic model of adaptive foraging in swarm robotics systems (2009)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

In this paper, we extend a macroscopic probabilistic model of a swarm of foraging robots from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous case. In the swarm, each robot is capable of adjusting its searching time and resting time thresholds following the rul... Read More about A macroscopic probabilistic model of adaptive foraging in swarm robotics systems.

Modelling a wireless connected swarm of mobile robots (2008)
Journal Article

It is a characteristic of swarm robotics that modelling the overall swarm behaviour in terms of the low-level behaviours of individual robots is very difficult. Yet if swarm robotics is to make the transition from the laboratory to real-world enginee... Read More about Modelling a wireless connected swarm of mobile robots.

A feasibility study for energy autonomy in multi robot search and rescue operations (2008)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper proposes a novel search and rescue concept that aims to overcome the most basic obstacle in utilising a search and rescue teleoperated robot for a long distance energy autonomy. The concept utilizes a number of small robots capable of crea... Read More about A feasibility study for energy autonomy in multi robot search and rescue operations.

Towards the application of swarm intelligence in safety critical systems (2006)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Swarm Intelligence provides us with a powerful new paradigm for building fully distributed de-centralised systems in which overall system functionality emerges from the interaction of individual agents with each other and with their environment. Such... Read More about Towards the application of swarm intelligence in safety critical systems.

Designing intelligent control systems for safety critical applications (2006)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This paper presents a design methodology for behaviour-based intelligent control systems, which we argue is suited to safety critical applications. The methodology has a formal basis, and uses dynamical systems theory to prove system safety propertie... Read More about Designing intelligent control systems for safety critical applications.

A methodology for provably stable behaviour-based intelligent control (2006)
Journal Article

This paper presents a design methodology for a class of behaviour-based control systems, arguing its potential for application to safety critical systems. We propose a formal basis for subsumption architecture design based on two extensions to Lyapun... Read More about A methodology for provably stable behaviour-based intelligent control.

Towards dependable swarms and a new discipline of swarm engineering (2005)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This review paper sets out to explore the question of how future complex engineered systems based upon the swarm intelligence paradigm could be assured for dependability. The paper introduces the new concept of 'swarm engineering': a fusion of depend... Read More about Towards dependable swarms and a new discipline of swarm engineering.

Towards dependable swarms and new discipline of swarm engineering (2004)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

The original shorter paper was given as an invited talk at the SAB '04 workshop on Swarm Robotics. Selected papers were invited to be extended and following further full review were published in this volume in the highly-regarded 'state of the art re... Read More about Towards dependable swarms and new discipline of swarm engineering.

Direct Lyapunov design - A synthesis procedure for motor schema using a second-order Lyapunov stability theorem (2002)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

In this paper we propose a new procedure for construction of motor schema typically used in behaviour-based robotics. The procedure reverses the standard stability analysis approach by searching for a
control function to fit a pre-defined Lyapunov f... Read More about Direct Lyapunov design - A synthesis procedure for motor schema using a second-order Lyapunov stability theorem.