Group explosion strategy for searching multiple targets using swarm robotic

In this paper, a group explosion strategy (GES) is proposed for searching multiple targets in obstructive environments using a swarm of simple robots. Considering the limited abilities of on-board sensors, fitness values detected by the robots are discrete in the problem. The strategy introduces schemes from the explosion phenomenon in nature and the whole swarm is self-adaptively divided into small groups which search for targets independently. GES takes the advantages of quick convergence from intra-group cooperation as well as searching multiple targets in parallel from inter-group cooperation. The simulation results demonstrate that GES has great efficiency in energy consumption and targets collecting benefitted from cooperation among robots. GES also shows great stability in obstructive environments.