ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an ant colony optimization (ACO)-based mine detection algorithm and its implementation with a group of robotic swarms. It evaluates robotic swarms in the context of the system of systems (SoS) concepts because of their similar characteristics, such as interoperability, integration, and adaptive communications. Thus, robotic swarms can be evaluated and studied as SoS based on these common characteristics. The chapter also explores the hardware and software designs of the modular microrobots used in the application and testing of the ACO-based mine detection algorithm. It also presents the details of SoS characteristics of robotic swarms. The chapter explores the ACO-based mine detection problem and its implementation on micromodular swarm robots, namely, GroundScouts. It shows modular microrobots, called GroundScouts, designed for swarm intelligence research and applications. Their hardware and software modularity present great opportunities for testing and experimenting with swarm intelligence-based algorithms and applications.
