Non-Dominated Immune-Endocrine Short Feedback Algorithm for Multi-Robot Maritime Patrolling

Multi-robot systems can be used to patrol a concerned part of ocean to ensure maritime safety under severe weather conditions. Seeking its optimal patrolling strategy to fulfill multi-optimization objectives is challenging. This paper presents a novel approach inspired by an immune-endocrine short feedback system to do so. Regulations produced by an endocrine system act on two phases of an artificial immune algorithm. First, a kind of hormone applied in a mutation process is proposed to decrease the number of undesirable solutions with the help of a Bayesian formula. Second, it is performed at a memory cell to suppress high-concentration antibodies and save high-quality individuals. To verify the feasibility of the proposed method, simulation experiments are conducted. The experimental results illustrate the desired effects of two regulation phases and the proposed method’s performance in solving a maritime patrolling problem. Its high search ability and convergence speed are shown via its comparison with the other well-known algorithms.