A multi-robot platform to study the collective adaptive mechanisms in mixed societies

Social animals are one of the most fascinating example of collective adaptive systems, for which complex collective behaviors can arise from social interaction that leads to self-organization of the group. We recently designed a system to investigate the fish collective behavior, by having robotic agents inserted among the fish societies. The system consists of a small cubic aquarium made of Plexiglas filled with water. Under the aquarium, a wheeled mobile robot is moving autonomously. This mobile robot is coupled with an actuated robotic fish lure that is moving inside the aquarium and that is waterproof. The fish lure is able to beat its tail to increase its attractiveness among fish. The wheeled mobile robot and the fish lure are coupled with magnets. The wheeled mobile robots are continuously powered so that we can study the adaptive mechanisms of the fish and the robots during day-long experiments. Both robots are remotely controlled and can be driven from a laptop. As it is a multi-robot platform, several fish-robots can move together, either to test collective motion models, either to interact with groups of living fish.