# Voluntary Retreat for Decentralized Interference Reduction in Robot Swarms

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a decentralized, communication-free algorithm enabling robots in dense swarms to voluntarily retreat, reducing interference and improving task efficiency in confined environments, validated through real-robot experiments.

## Contribution

It presents a novel decentralized retreat algorithm for robot swarms that operates without communication, enhancing interference management and task performance.

## Key findings

- The algorithm reduces spatial interference in dense robot swarms.
- Experimental validation shows improved efficiency in real robot teams.
- Robots effectively decide to stay or retreat based on local binary info.

## Abstract

In densely-packed robot swarms operating in confined regions, spatial interference -- which manifests itself as a competition for physical space -- forces robots to spend more time navigating around each other rather than performing the primary task. This paper develops a decentralized algorithm that enables individual robots to decide whether to stay in the region and contribute to the overall mission, or vacate the region so as to reduce the negative effects that interference has on the overall efficiency of the swarm. We develop this algorithm in the context of a distributed collection task, where a team of robots collect and deposit objects from one set of locations to another in a given region. Robots do not communicate and use only binary information regarding the presence of other robots around them to make the decision to stay or retreat. We illustrate the efficacy of the algorithm with experiments on a team of real robots.