The design of collective decision-making mechanisms for robot swarms engaged in tasks that require consensus among the robots is a challenging problem in swarm robotics. The complexity of this design problem increases with the number of options and the number of cues that robots have to consider to make a decision. The research work presented in this thesis addresses this challenge by exploring the potential of evolutionary robotics (ER) as a design tool for synthesising neural network controllers that underpin the robots' decision-making process. The main objective is to design individual mechanisms that support the emergence of robust, scalable, and effective collective decision-making strategies while avoiding common assumptions made in previous research. These assumptions include pre-defined correlations between environmental features and robot behaviour or the use of specific opinion formation mechanisms, such as the voter or majority rule, to update opinions.

The thesis focuses on two fundamental collective decision-making scenarios: the collective perception scenario and the site selection scenario. The first scenario involves robots collectively identifying the most prevalent element in the environment, represented by the colour covering the largest portion of the arena floor. The second scenario requires the robots to collectively choose the best site among several options based on their quality.

The Faculty of Computer Science at UNamur invites you to Ahmed ALMANSOORI's PhD Thesis "On the Evolution of Mechanisms for Collective Decision-making in a Swarm of Robots".

Directed by Prof. Elio TUCI.

In front of a jury composed of:

  • Prof. Wim VANHOOF, President, University of Namur
  • Prof. Elio TUCI, Promoter, University of Namur
  • Prof. Patrick HEYMANS, Internal Member, University of Namur
  • Prof. Muhanad HAYDER MOHAMMED MOHAMMED, Internal Member, University of Namur
  • Prof. Yara KHALUF, External Member, Wageningen University (Netherlands)

You are cordially invited to a drink, which will follow the public defense.

For good organization, please give your answer by Thursday, October 10 by means of this link.

Contact: Notaro Amelie - amelie.notaro@unamur.be