Distributed On-line Learning in Swarm Robotics with Limited Communication Bandwidth

This paper presents a new algorithm for distributed on-line evolutionary learning in swarm robotics. The challenge we address is to cope with the limited computation and communication capabilities of low cost robots, which are often used in swarm robotics. In order to do so, the algorithm decouples computation and communication and ensures learning of efficient control policies even when only a limited amount of information can be exchanged between neighbouring robots. We show experimentally that this algorithm is both remarkably robust with respect to its meta-parameter values, and able to adapt automatically to the available communication bandwidth.