A Low-Cost Educational Platform for Swarm Robotics Micael S. Couceiro, Carlos M. Figueiredo, J. Miguel A. Luz, Nuno M. F. Ferreira RoboCorp, Department of Electrical Engineering (DEE) Engineering Institute of Coimbra (ISEC), 3030-199, Coimbra, Portugal {micael, cfigueiredo, miguel.luz, nunomig}@isec.pt Rui P. Rocha Institute of Systems and Robotics (ISR), Faculty of Sciences and Technology University of Coimbra (FCTUC), Pólo II, 3030-290, Coimbra, Portugal rprocha@isr.uc.pt Abstract Swarm robotics usually involves a large number of robots, dealing with the emergence of intelligent collective behaviors based on local interactions, thus mimicking collective behaviors found in biologi- cal societies (e.g. ants, bees, bacteria, etc.). Therefore, both miniaturization and cost of robotic plat- form are key-factors in swarm robotics scenarios, in order to allow affordable experimentation with real platforms. This article presents a miniature low-cost robot design, denoted as eSwarBot (Educa- tional Swarm Robot), which specifically targets engineering education and swarm robotics in the De- partment of Electrical Engineering at the Engineering Institute of Coimbra. eSwarBot was designed as an Arduino-based open platform requiring basic knowledge of other areas beyond robotics, like me- chanics, control or energy management. Furthermore, the comparison with other platforms used in swarm applications is also presented. Keywords: Swarm Robotics, Mobile Robot, Low-Cost, Education. 1. Introduction The concept of collective intelligence is perhaps one of the most amazing phenomena in biological evolution. Very small creatures such as bees, ants, termites and others can achieve impressive feats (e.g., elaborately constructed nests) which are a result of a swarm intelligence that emerges through cooperation between agents of the same society [1]. Although the study of dozens of social species has been done for a century, the field of biomimetics is still trying to capture the underlying principles of how and why cooperation evolved. One of the most recent “offspring” of biomimetics is known as swarm robotics. Swarm robotics consists on the coordination of decentralized, self-organized and simplistic multi-robot systems in order to describe a collective behavior as a consequence of local interactions with one another and with their environment [2]. However, just like in nature, swarm intelligence requires a high number of interacting agents to in order to emerge — a single ant colony may contain more than 10000 workers. This results in a limiting factor in swarm robotics, since the experimentation cost may jeopardize the need of having many sim- pler robots instead of having a single more complex robot. The following requirements, sorted by relevance, can be expected from robots to be used in swarm robotic systems: · Cost — Robots should be as cheap as possible since most swarm teams may have dozens or hun- dreds of robots [3]; · Autonomy — Robots should have a long battery life since the swarm may need to operate long enough for the collective behavior to emerge and the goal to be reached [4]; · Communication — Robots have to support wireless communication such as in the form of ad-hoc networks [4]; · Sensory System — Robots should be equipped with some form of sensing capability to allow inter- action among robots as well as with their environment [5]; · Processing — Robots need to be able to process information about other robots and the environ- ment (e.g., sensing data) [4]. International Journal of Robots, Education and Art(IJREA) Volume2, Number1. February 2012 doi:10.4156/ijrea.vol2.issue1.1 A Low-Cost Educational Platform for Swarm Robotics Micael S. Couceiro, Carlos M. Figueiredo, J. Miguel A. Luz, Nuno M. F. Ferreira, Rui P. Rocha