From Network Sensors to Intelligent Systems: A Decade-Long Review of Swarm Robotics Technologies
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. The SLR Protocol
2.1. Research Questions
- What are the key standardization barriers that prevent Swarm Robotics deployment in real world applications?
- How do hardware/software integration choices affect swarm performance and scalability?
- Which design patterns show up in Swarm Robotics implementations that are successful versus those that are unsuccessful?
2.2. Exclusion and Inclusion Criteria
- The papers must be published between 2014 and 2024.
- The papers are written in English.
- The papers are the results of searching in Google Scholar, Google search engine, and Semantic Scholar.
- Exclude duplicate papers that contain redundant information.
- Papers must be four pages or longer to exclude works lacking scientific methodology and sufficient detail.
- Papers that are inaccessible are excluded.
- Papers that do not contribute to the research after reviewing them are excluded.
2.3. Quality Assessment Criteria
- 1.
- Research Design and Methodology:
- Clearly defined research objectives: Does the paper outline its contributions and research goals?
- Description of methodology: Is the development or experimental methodology sufficiently described?
- Software and hardware validation: Have the suggested software and hardware components undergone adequate testing and validation?
- 2.
- Technical Contribution:
- Innovation and novelty: Does the paper offer new software or hardware solutions or enhancements?
- Technical depth: Is the technical content rigorous and detailed enough?
- 3.
- Experimental Evaluation:
- Experiments: Are they appropriate and well-designed?
- 4.
- Relevance and Impact:
- Swarm Robotics relevance: To what extent does the work relate to the field of Swarm Robotics?
- Can the proposed solution be practically implemented?
2.4. Execution
3. Hardware Design
3.1. Sensors
- is the incidence angle of the reflected light.
- x is the distance from the reflective point.
- v is the IR sensor’s viewing angle.
- is the amplifier’s gain and determines the sensor’s sensitivity.
- n is the quantity of dots within the viewing angle of the infrared sensor.
- simulates the impact of ambient light and the offset of the sensor’s output.
- is the sensor output signal.
- x is the distance of the obstacle.
- is the angle of incidence with the surface.
- includes several parameters, such as the reflectivity coefficient, output power of emitted IR, and sensor sensitivity.
- is the amplifier’s offset value plus the effect of ambient light.
3.2. Actuators and Locomotion Mechanisms
3.3. Communication and Networking
- Communication Distance Capability: The X-Bee modules have more extensive communication range in comparison to the Bluetooth Bee modules.
- Data Transmission Speed: The PmodWiFi module, when mixed with the SPI interface, facilitates a higher rate of data transfer comparing to the X-Bee and Bluetooth Bee modules.
- Energy Consumption: Each module exhibits distinct power requirements.
- Bluetooth Bee Modules: Like X-Bee, they use serial communication for short-range communication within the swarm.
- PmodWiFi modules: Provide wireless communication through WiFi connectivity. They use the SPI mode to transmit data and receive it, offering faster data rates compared to serial communication.
- Robot size and weight: Smaller robots require smaller, lighter batteries.
- Power consumption: Robots with more sensors, actuators, and processing power need higher-capacity batteries.
- Mission duration: Longer missions necessitate batteries with longer run times.
3.4. Power Source
3.5. Summary of the Hardware Section
4. Software Design
4.1. Modular and Framework-Based Architectures
- SwarmUS Platform
- ROS-Based Implementations
4.2. Layered and Hierarchical Architectures
- Zooids Interactive Platform
- Aquatic Systems Architecture
- Fast Low-Cost Systems
4.3. Educational and Human–Robot Interaction Platforms
- Cellulo Educational Platform
- Safety-Focused Remote Platforms
4.4. Automatic Design and Control Software Generation
- AutoMoDe Family
- 1.
- AutoMoDe-Vanilla (Vanilla) is a modular approach-based automatic design process. It assembles pre-existing parametric modules that are representations of low-level behaviors and conditions (such as black-floor, neighbor-count, etc.) and synthesizes control software in the form of a probabilistic finite state machine.
- 2.
- EvoStick is an implementation of evolutionary robotics for automatic design, and it deals with an unhidden feed-forward neural network.
- 3.
- U-Human is a manual design approach, where human experts use the API to the robot’s sensors and actuators in the creation of control software with complete freedom.
- 4.
- C-Human is an additional manual design approach, where human experts use the same parametric modules and control architecture as Vanilla.
- Machine Learning and Evolutionary Approaches
4.5. Specialized Platform Implementations
- Low-Level Programming Approaches
- Large-Scale Self-Assembly Systems
- Specialized Domain Applications
4.6. Communication and Standardization Frameworks
- Cross-Platform Communication
- Domain-Specific Languages
4.7. Development Toolkits and Research Platforms
- Python-Based Development Tools
- Actor-Oriented and Distributed Systems
- Platform-Agnostic Solutions
- 1.
- Robot control “body,” communication “network,” and swarming behavior “behavior” are all divided into separate classes in a modular design.
- 2.
- Platform agnostic: By developing body classes tailored to a particular platform, various robots can be integrated (eBot and e-puck examples provided).
- 3.
- Heterogeneity is enabled and communication is flexible.
- 4.
- It offers the “MockBody” and “MockNetwork” classes for quick prototyping and simulation of swarm algorithms without the need for actual hardware. Additionally, Python (3.13.7) is used for ease of development.
4.8. Formal Methods and Verification Approaches
- Property-Driven Design
4.9. Historical Context and Comparative Analysis
- Multi-Robot Systems Overview
4.10. Critical Languages and Techniques
4.11. Summary of the Software Section
5. Answering the Research Questions
5.1. What Are the Key Standardization Barriers That Prevent Swarm Robotics Deployment in Real World Applications?
- Hardware Fragmentation and Platform Incompatibility:The lack of unified hardware architectures is the most significant obstacle. More than 20 different hardware platforms were found during our review; these platforms used various sensor configurations, communication protocols, and power management systems. For example, SwarmUS [15] incorporates RPLidar and Realsense cameras, the Colias robot [27] uses only infrared proximity sensors, and aquatic platforms such as Jeff [29] use electrodes and pressure sensors for underwater navigation. This diversity creates several compounding problems:
- The inability to migrate across platforms: Research findings are not transferable because each platform necessitates extensive software rewrites.
- Fragmentation of the component supply chain: Specialized Swarm Robotics components do not have economies of scale.
- Inconsistencies in testing and validation: Performance comparisons across platforms are useless due to disparate sensor capabilities.
- Communication Protocol Chaos:Possibly the biggest obstacle to standardization is the communication environment. Among the platforms we examined, our analysis found at least seven distinct communication methods: Bluetooth, ZigBee, infrared, RF modules, electric field detection, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11), and even acoustic signals. This disarray shows up in a number of important ways:
- Interoperability impossibility: Heterogeneous swarms are prevented by the inability of robots from different platforms to communicate.
- Mismatches in range and bandwidth: ZigBee systems (800–1000 m range) cannot be coordinated with robots that have Bluetooth (10–15 m range).
- Changes in protocol overhead: The latency and power consumption of various communication stacks vary greatly.
- Software Architecture Divergence:Equally problematic is the software standardization barrier. Our analysis revealed essentially distinct architectural methodologies:
- Monolithic systems that closely integrate swarm logic and hardware control (such as Costa et al.’s aquatic SR [25]).
- Layered architectures that contain layers for applications, simulations, servers, and hardware (like Zooids [26]).
- Modular frameworks that isolate Swarm Intelligence from robot functions, such as SwarmUS [15].
Because each approach necessitates distinct programming paradigms, development tools, and deployment methodologies, these architectural differences create unsolvable integration challenges. - Economic Constraint Modeling Gaps:The absence of standardized economic modeling for swarm systems presents a particularly pernicious standardization obstacle. Salman et al. [16] were the only ones to specifically address economic constraints in their Waffle platform, demonstrating how cost constraints radically alter software design and hardware selection. Standardized cost–performance metrics are lacking, which prohibits the following:
- Selecting a platform rationally: Developers are unable to compare platforms for particular applications in an unbiased manner.
- Planning an investment: Businesses are unable to forecast maintenance needs or scaling expenses.
- Evaluation of risk: Swarm deployment’s economic feasibility is still mostly up in the air.
- Testing and Validation Methodology Inconsistencies:Standardized testing procedures are critically lacking, according to our analysis. The only attempt at a standardized experimental infrastructure is the Robotarium [31], but even this platform has hardware limitations that prevent wider use. This results in the following:
- Reproducibility issues: It is impossible to confirm experimental findings on various platforms.
- Inconsistencies in performance metrics: The success metrics used in different studies differ significantly.
- Challenges with safety certification: There are no established methods for assessing swarm safety by regulatory agencies.
5.2. How Do Hardware/Software Integration Choices Affect Swarm Performance and Scalability?
- Sensing–Communication–Control Integration Patterns
- Complex control algorithms are eliminated by using simple vibration motors for locomotion.
- Protocol overhead is almost eliminated with IR communication.
- Coordination complexity is eliminated when all agents have the same programming.
- Improved environmental awareness by fusing sensors.
- The choice of communication protocol according to mission requirements.
- Software architectures that are modular and capable of utilizing various hardware capabilities.
- Multimodal sensing (electrodes, magnetometry, pressure, and acceleration).
- A variety of communication channels, including electric field, acoustic, and LED.
- Advanced autonomy algorithms for navigation under water.
- Power Management and Performance Trade-offs
- Though it limits behavioral sophistication by reducing sensor/processing capacity, distributed power management (e.g., Cellulo [30]) lowers cost and complexity, allowing for larger deployments and simpler maintenance.
- Although they increase per-agent costs, hybrid systems (e.g., Abuelhaija et al. [32]) improve accuracy, subsystem optimization, and fault tolerance by separating power for motors and control circuits.
- Communication Architecture Scalability Limits
- Large swarms are fragmented by broadcast systems (common in IR-based designs) due to quadratic message collisions, bandwidth saturation, and range constraints.
- Although network-based systems (like the Wi-Fi in Robotarium [31]) offer infrastructure support, higher bandwidth, and structured routing, they also limit deployment flexibility.
- Long-range networking (ANT, BLE) and short-range sensing (IR) are combined in hybrid communication (e.g., mROBerTO [40]), which optimizes coordination at multiple scales at the expense of high software complexity.
- Control Algorithm–Hardware Coupling Effects
- Although it is brittle and non-transferable, tight coupling (such as aquatic control in Jeff) maximizes efficiency and predictability in particular environments.
- Portability, modularity, and maintainability are made possible by loose coupling (such as hardware abstraction in SwarmUS ), albeit at the expense of performance and limited hardware exploitation.
5.3. Which Design Patterns Show up in Swarm Robotics Implementations That Are Successful Versus Those That Are Unsuccessful?
- Successful Implementation
- Unsuccessful Implementation
6. Future Research Directions
- Standardization and Interoperability
- Hardware Standardization: A universal hardware interface and reference architectures would allow interoperability across different platforms. Many of the studies included in the review used incompatible hardware, resulting in over 20 different hardware platforms and creating significant deployment barriers.
- Communications Standardization: Adaptive communication protocols that allow swarms to switch between the identified communication methods (seven in total: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, IR, RF, acoustic, electric field) as mission requirement dictators is required.
- Machine Learning Incorporation
- Distributed Learning: It is integral that federated learning algorithms are developed for swarms to adjust behaviors on-the-fly while maintaining a decentralized swarm.
- Emergent Behavior Predictability and Control: Before effective emergent behaviors can even be considered for application, the development of a mathematical framework for predicting emergent behaviors with individual robot programs will be necessary.
- Scalability
- Ultra-Large Scale Architecture: With Kilobots demonstrating how 1000 or more robots can operate within a swarm, protocols and hierarchical control structures governing communication at these massive scales must be developed.
- Energy-Efficient Operation: Swarms will need to be able to operate indefinitely using the various wireless charging networks and multi-modal energy harvesting to extend their current 40–120 min of operations.
- Application-Oriented Research
- Environmental Monitoring: Investigate development of sustainability-friendly, multi-modal sensing systems comprised of aerial, terrestrial, and aquatics robots to better understand ecosystems.
- Disaster Response: Develop swarms of robots that work collaboratively, whilst being safe in hazardous environments, and in real-time with human operators.
- Industrial Application: Research applications for manufacturing and infrastructure inspection, specifically with bundled, swarm-like coordination.
- Theoretical Development
- Formal Verification: Develop model checking and safety certification for swarm systems so they can be deployed in safety-critical applications.
- Economic Modeling: Develop comprehensive cost-performance models aligned with the economic limitations that influence how systems are designed.
- Critical Priorities
- The most significant priority area is standardization—without some basic standardization in the form of common frameworks, we will make no tangible progress, nor will we have commercially viable applications. At the same time, infusing adaptive intelligence via machine learning can create a form of swarm capability that is important for a swarm of robots to operate in a real-world context.
7. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Category | Component | Function/Usage | Specs (Power, Range, Cost) | Platform(s)/Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sensors | GP2Y0A21YK IR Sensor | Obstacle avoidance; range detection | 30–50 mA; 10–80 cm; $5–10 | S-Bot [23] |
HC-SR04 Ultrasonic | Distance measurement; anti-collision | 15 mA; 2–400 cm; $1–5 | UBswarm [24]; Mustafa SR [23] | |
Realsense D400 Camera | Depth sensing; 3D mapping | 1.6 W; USB; $150–300 | SwarmUS [15] | |
DS18B20 Temp Sensor | Water temperature sensing | 1 mA; digital; $2–10 | Aquatic SR (Costa) [25] | |
AT42QT1070 Touch Sensor | Capacitive human interaction | 2 µA; $5–15 | Zooids [26] | |
LSM303D Magnetometer | Orientation and heading | 100 µA; $5–20 | Aquatic SR (Costa) [25] | |
Actuators | DC Gear Motors (Solarbotics) | Wheeled movement | 35–150 mA; 3–12 V DC; $10–30 | Colias [27]; UBswarm [24]; S-Bot [23] |
SG90 Servo Motors | Wheel drive (modified) | 250 mA peak; 5 V; $2–10 | HeRo [28] | |
Piezoelectric Actuators | Micro-scale movement | mW range; low voltage; $10–50 | Kilobot [29] | |
Omni-wheel Drive | Holonomic motion | Variable; platform-specific $10–50 | Cellulo [30] | |
Propeller Motors (NTM, EMAX) | Aquatic propulsion | 140 W; 11.1 V LiPo; $10–30 | Jeff [29]; Costa SR [25] | |
Stepper Motors | Precision wheel control | Platform dependent $10–40 | Robotarium [28] (GRITSbot) | |
Communication | ESP8266 Wi-Fi | Long-range communications; ROS link | 70–170 mA; 20–50 m; $2–10 | HeRo [28]; GRITSbot [31] |
PmodWiFi (SPI) | High-speed Wi-Fi data | 250 mA; 400 m; $20–30 | UBswarm [24] | |
nRF24L01+ RF Chip | RF link with PC/server | 15 mA; 800–1000 m; $1–5 | Zooids [26] | |
RN-42 Bluetooth | App/tablet communication | 15–50 mA; 10–15 m; $10–30 | Cellulo [30] | |
IR Sensors (long/short) | Obstacle avoidance; short-range comms | 30 mA; 1–5 m; $5–20 | Colias [27]; S-Bot [23] | |
TL-WN722N Wi-Fi Adapter | Aquatic robot-to-base communications | 200–300 mA; 40 m; $10–30 | Aquatic SR (Costa) [25] | |
Power Sources | 3.7 V Li-Po Battery | Main control and drive power | 600–1200 mAh; USB; $5–15 | Colias [27]; Zooids [26] |
11.1 V Li-Po Pack | High power for aquatic missions | 880 mAh ×8; 120 min; $20–50 | Jeff [29] | |
Wireless Charging Dock | Automatic recharge | 400 mAh; 40 min runtime; $10–30 | Robotarium (GRITSbot) [28] | |
Dual Battery (Motor+Logic) | Noise isolation; redundancy | 4.2 V Li-Ion ×2; $20–50 | Abuelhaija SR [32] | |
USB-rechargeable Li-Ion | Educational use; safe | Rechargeable via USB; $5–10 | Cellulo [30] |
Platform/Architecture | Features | Limitations | Applications |
---|---|---|---|
SwarmUS [15] | ROS + Buzz integration, modular, real-to-simulation continuity | Requires experience with multiple tools | Advanced real-world hybrid deployments |
Aquatic SR [25] | Real-time Java control, low-cost Raspberry Pi, user-friendly interface | Limited modularity and scalability | Low-cost aquatic swarms |
Zooids [26] | Human-swarm interaction, high-frequency coordination, layered architecture | Limited to tabletop | UI/HCI studies |
Cellulo [30] | Haptic feedback, education-focused, decentralized design | Limited complexity | Educational robotics |
Robotarium [31] | Safety mechanisms, remote testing, real-to-sim pipeline | Limited hardware control | Cloud-based experiments |
HeRo [28] | Simple Arduino+ROS setup, cost-effective, modular firmware | Minimal swarm-specific middleware | Teaching platforms |
Waffle (AutoMoDe) [16] | Modular, automatically optimized control under constraints | Not flexible beyond mission-specific designs | Automated, constraint-aware controller generation |
Kilobots [57] | Extremely scalable, low-cost, decentralized | Lacks computation diversity | Self-organization studies |
AutoMoDe-Chocolate [58] | PFSM + optimization with structured modules | Limited expressiveness | Automated control design |
AutoMoDe-Vanilla [59] | Simple PFSM composition | Less optimal than Chocolate | Baseline automated design |
AutoMoDe-Maple [60] | Modular behavior trees, automatic tuning | Higher complexity | Rich control strategies |
Buzz [61] | Swarm-specific DSL, stigmergy | Steep learning curve | Heterogeneous swarms |
SwarmTalk [62] | Lightweight communication API | Middleware only | Communication layer |
Pyswarming [63] | Pythonic interface, built-in algorithms | Limited to simulation | Teaching, prototyping |
Marabunta [64] | Modular Python framework, supports heterogeneity | Requires manual adaptation | Platform-agnostic simulation |
PILOT [65] | Actor-oriented toolkit for ML and distributed control | Limited real-world validation | ML-integrated distributed programming |
Swarmie [66] | Modular ROS architecture, formation control | Application-specific | Engineering missions |
Property-Driven Design [67] | Formal methods; uses PCTL and model checking | High complexity | Safety-critical verification |
ROS-Heterogeneous Framework [68] | Five-mode abstraction, modular, ROS-based | Custom-built; limited general documentation | Unified control of heterogeneous multirobot team |
EvoStick (Neural Net) [59] | Evolves FFNNs using evolutionary algorithms | Prone to overfitting; lacks interpretability | Optimizing reactive swarm behavior from scratch |
Monolithic Neural Nets [69] | End-to-end design; learns complex behaviors | Poor transparency, hard to debug or reuse | Experimental end-to-end control in simulation |
Behavior Trees [60] | Modular, hierarchical control flow; easy debugging | Still emerging in swarm robotics context | Tree-based swarm control logic design |
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Refis, F.C.; Mahammedi, N.A.; Kerrache, C.A.; Dhelim, S. From Network Sensors to Intelligent Systems: A Decade-Long Review of Swarm Robotics Technologies. Sensors 2025, 25, 6115. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25196115
Refis FC, Mahammedi NA, Kerrache CA, Dhelim S. From Network Sensors to Intelligent Systems: A Decade-Long Review of Swarm Robotics Technologies. Sensors. 2025; 25(19):6115. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25196115
Chicago/Turabian StyleRefis, Fouad Chaouki, Nassim Ahmed Mahammedi, Chaker Abdelaziz Kerrache, and Sahraoui Dhelim. 2025. "From Network Sensors to Intelligent Systems: A Decade-Long Review of Swarm Robotics Technologies" Sensors 25, no. 19: 6115. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25196115
APA StyleRefis, F. C., Mahammedi, N. A., Kerrache, C. A., & Dhelim, S. (2025). From Network Sensors to Intelligent Systems: A Decade-Long Review of Swarm Robotics Technologies. Sensors, 25(19), 6115. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25196115