Qurratu Aini Zaini MSc Dissertation 2014/15

Swarm Robotics in Farm Maintenance Activities: A comparison study of swarm behaviours

Supervised by A.Sharkey

Abstract

Swarm intelligence comes from nature. It is naturally inspired by observing behaviours of social insects. What is interesting about such behaviour is that, these social insects are able to achieve colony goals by only interacting with each other. In addition, they have a very sophisticated system that enables them to adapt to situations and self organise when situations are different than expected. Such robust system became an inspiration to researchers in the field of swarm intelligence and swarm robotics. Application of swarm intelligence has been used widely in many fields, especially in optimisation. This project aims to apply swarm intelligence to farming since there is lack of work being done in this area. We aim to use the most suitable swarm intelligence systems to simulate agents that work together to maintain a farm. In detail, we aim to compare two swarm systems with one that has all the properties of an intelligent swarm with the one with added benefit. The ultimate goal is to achieve the objectives of a swarm by helping to maintain the farm through watering activities.