Data for Guerrilla Performance Analysis for Robot Swarms (videos, sim. screenshot, data files)

Scalability is a key feature of swarm robotics. Hence, measuring performance P depending on swarm size N is important to check the validity of the design. These performance diagrams P(N) have generic qualities across many different application scenarios. We summarize these findings and condense them in a practical performance analysis guide for swarm robotics. We introduce three general classes of performance: linear increase, saturation, and increase/decrease. As the performance diagrams P(N) may contain rich information about underlying processes, such as the degree of collaboration and chains of interference events in crowded situations, we discuss options for quickly devising hypotheses about the underlying robot behaviors. The validity of our performance analysis guide is then made plausible in a number of simple examples based on models and simulations.