Description:

Swarm robotics is a relatively new approach to control the operation of a multi-robot system, which consists of a large numbers of physically simple robots. In this context, the robots dispose of limited sensing and acting resources. It is well known now that from such systems and with the right control actions, the desired collective behavior emerges from the interactions between the robots of the swarm and their interactions with the environment. This is property is usually identified as swarm intelligence. The control actions (algorithms) are usually simple, and in most cases, inspired form biological systems such as ants colonies, bird flocks, fish schools and/or social as well as economic systems, among and other existing fields, where the swarming behavior occurs.

The focus of this special issue to be published in Elsevier Journal on Neurocomputing will be on all aspects of efficient distributed control of robot swarms, and mainly distributed and learning algorithms for swarm robotics, to solve operational problems to manage the swarm, such as clustering, dynamic task allocation, localization, among many others. Applications to solve real-world problems, especially those dedicated to nano-robotics, are also welcome.

Timeline (tentative):

Paper Submission: 1 August 2014;
Decision Notification: 31 November 2014;
Possible revision: January 2015
Camera-Ready Submission: 28 February 2015
If you intend to contribute to this special issue, please send a title and abstract of your contribution to the guest editors.

The submissions will be handled through the Electronic Editorial System of Elsevier. Prospective authors are invited to register at http://ees.elsevier.com/neucom/ and submit their papers electronically in a format consistent with the author submission guidelines of Neurocomputing. When submitting, please indicate that your manuscript is a Special Issue Paper and select the topic SWARM, when prompted by the system. For questions regarding submissions to the special issue, please contact one of the guest editors. For technical questions regarding the submission website, please contact the support office at Elsevier or the guest editors.

Guest Editors:

Nadia Nedjah, nadia@eng.uerj.br
Electronics Engineering & Telecommunications, State University of Rio de Janeiro - UERJ
http://www.eng.uerj.br/~nadia/english.html

Luiza M. Mourelle, ldmm@eng.uerj.br
Systems Engineering & Computation, State University of Rio de Janeiro - UERJ
http://www.eng.uerj.br/~ldmm