12



 10






 ( 0



 oX Coordinate
 -5












Figure 2.3 Illustration of information particles and the forces acting on them

 Here, we assume that each robot in the swarm transmits an RF signal with certain

amplitude and frequency. This signal may also be coded in order to improve the

robustness of the system under noise and hostile jamming. Since the amplitude of any RF

signal decays with the square of the distance, the potential field emanated by each

particle is assumed as


 (4) A (2.10)
 T

 Note that the above assumption satisfies all the properties of a potential field.

Further, the fact that the above potential function is physically realizable motivates its use

in this application. It is possible to show that maximization of entropy in a fixed region

can be achieved using the above formulation [Erd02]. Since the maximization of entropy