A special issue on Swarm Robotics has just been published and a new one is already in preparation. I just learned that the "International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics" plans a special edition on Swarm Robotics for next year. Guest editors for this special issue are Professor S. Hettiarachchi from Eastern Oregon University and Professor William M. Spears from University of Wyoming. Hereafter are the scope, topics and deadlines of this special issue as they appear on the official website.

Scope

The focus of Swarm Robotics is to study how a swarm of relatively simple physically embodied robots can be controlled to collectively accomplish tasks that are beyond the capabilities of a single robot. The advantages of swarm robotics are that (1) complex control is achievable through simple local interactions of the swarm members, (2) the results scale well with larger numbers of robots, and (3) the swarm is robust to failure of individual members. Algorithms, techniques and methods based on swarm robotics principles have been successfully applied to a wide range of complex problems. This special issue aims at exhibiting the latest research achievement, findings and ideas in the area of Swarm Robotics.

Possible topics for the issue include but are not limited to:

• Modeling and analysis
• Coordination and control
• Formation configuration and stabilization
• Self-organization and self-assembly
• Simulation tools and hardware
• Optimization
• Emergent behavior
• Evolutionary swarms
• Adaptive swarm architectures
• Swarm communication
• Distributed swarm applications

Important Dates

Submission of Manuscripts: January 10, 2009
Notification of Acceptance: April 20, 2009
Submission of Final Papers: June 10, 2009