Os Veículos Aéreos Não Tripulados (VANTs) são ideais para operações de risco e estressante para o ser humano são as chamadas dull, dirty and dangerous missions. Portanto, uma importante aplicação desse tipo de robô aéreo diz respeito a operações de busca envolvendo múltiplos VANTs cooperativos, em que há risco de colisões entre aeronaves e o tempo de um voo é limitado, entre outros fatores, pela capacidade de um piloto trabalhar sem descanso. Entretanto, apesar de atualmente verificar-se um crescente número de pesquisas envolvendo VANTs e do grande potencial existente na utilização de VANTs, operações de busca cooperativas ainda não estão ocorrendo. Esse assunto é uma área de estudo multidisciplinar e nascente, que possui diversas linhas de pesquisa. Diferentes algoritmos de navegação e padrões de busca foram estudados visando selecionar o(s) mais adequado(s). Além disso, apresenta-se, neste trabalho, uma visão geral sobre os mecanismos de coordenação multiagente e avalia a adequação de cada uma delas à coordenação distribuída de agentes (VANTs), visando cooperação. Assim, com o objetivo de melhorar o desempenho de uma operação de busca, esta pesquisa de mestrado propõe um modelo de VANTs cooperativos que combina mecanismos de coordenação multiagente, algoritmos de navegação e padrões de busca estabelecidos pelos principais órgãos responsáveis pelas operações de busca e salvamento. Visando avaliar a sensibilidade do percentual médio de detecção de objetos, bem como o tempo médio de busca, foi desenvolvido um simulador e milhares de simulações foram realizadas. Observou-se que, utilizando o modelo, VANTs cooperativos podem reduzir, em média, 57% do tempo de busca (comparando com uma busca de dois VANTs não cooperativos no mesmo cenário), mantendo a probabilidade média de detecção dos objetos próxima de 100% e sobrevoando apenas 30% do espaço de busca. / There are an increasing number of researches into UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) in the literature. These robots are quite suitable to dull, dirty and dangerous missions. Thus, an important application of these vehicles is the search operations involving multiple UAVs in which there is risk of collisions among aircrafts and the flight time is limited by the maximum time of pilot working hours. However, despite the huge potential use of the UAVs, cooperative search operations with this kind of flying robots are not yet occurring. This research topic is a new and multidisciplinary area of study in its beginning and there are several issues that can be studied, such as centralized versus decentralized control, path planning for cooperative flights, agent reasoning for UAV tactical planning, safety assessments, reliability in automatic target reconnaissance by cameras, agent coordination mechanisms applied to UAV cooperation and the application itself. Different path planning algorithms were studied aiming to attain the most suitable to these kinds of operations, and the conclusions are presented. In addition, official documents of Search and Rescue operations are also studied in order to know the best practices already established for this kind of operations, and, finally, an overview of the coordination multi-agent theory is presented and evaluated to achieve the UAV coordination. This work proposes a model that combines path planning algorithms, search patterns and multi-agent coordination techniques to obtain a cooperative UAV model. The great goal for cooperative UAV is to achieve such performance that the performance of the group overcomes the sum of the individual performances isolatedly. Then, aiming to analyze the average percentage of objects detection, and the average search time, a simulator was developed and thousands of simulations were run. It was observed that, using the proposed model, two cooperative UAVs can perform a search operation 57% faster than two non cooperative UAVs, keeping the average probability of objects detection approaching at 100% and flying only 30% of the search space.

Submitted by Rosivalda Pereira (mrs.pereira@ufma.br) on 2017-08-14T18:09:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 LucianaFarias.pdf: 24712291 bytes, checksum: d8760f57e945d0cde298c31a44b38539 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-14T18:09:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LucianaFarias.pdf: 24712291 bytes, checksum: d8760f57e945d0cde298c31a44b38539 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-11-04 / This work is discussed the conceptual model of a multi-agent system for environmental monitoring with the use of biomarkers of aquatic organisms present in the port complex of São Luís-Maranhão-Brasil, second most important in the country in cargo handling. Located in the São Marcos Bay, this complex have an estuarine ecosystems which have suffered attacks in the current process of economic development, caused by intense port handling, dumping of ballast water and washing the vessels, overfishing, introduction of exotic species in the middle pollution in urban and industrial effluents, subject to severe environmental impacts that should be monitored. Methodologically, the modeling of the monitoring solution, we used the existing environmental conditions and aquatic life caught in two different sites of the port complex, the first in a potentially contaminated area and the second in a contamination-free (control), proposing the creation of a network of sensors in these locations. Invest conceded data by Carvalho-Neta (2007) whose research includes to catch fish in these perimeters, then submitting them for laboratory analysis to measure the enzyme activity of glutathione S-transferase (GST) and Catalase (CAT), the result was processed and recorded in bio-ontology . The core of the solution of Multi-agent system is based on the results derived from the biochemical analysis of GST, inspiring the modeling software agent that simulates the behavior of this enzyme. The solution also includes an application running on mobile devices that makes the collection of environmental variables in the selected points, validates them and makes the inference of those who could not be collected. Multi-agent System for Environmental Monitoring of the Port Complex of the Island of São Luís-Maranhão- Brasil, therefore, is made up of the bio-ontology, sensor networking, mobile application collection and inference of data from environmental conditions, software agents to simulate biochemical analysis, calculation of GST activity and other staff related to the maintenance and security of the SMA. / Nesta dissertação é discutido o modelo conceitual de um sistema multiagente para monitoramento ambiental com uso de marcadores biológicos de organismos aquáticos presentes no complexo portuário de São Luís-MA, segundo mais importante do país em movimentação de carga. Situado na Baía de São Marcos, esse complexo possui um dos ecossistemas estuarinos que mais têm sofrido agressões no atual processo de desenvolvimento econômico, provocadas pela intensa movimentação portuária, despejo de água de lastro e lavagem dos navios, pesca predatória, introdução de espécies exóticas no meio, poluição por efluentes domésticos e industriais, sujeitando o ambiente a fortes impactos ambientais que devem ser monitorados. Metodologicamente, na modelagem da solução de monitoramento, utilizou-se o registro das condições ambientais e de organismos aquáticos capturados em dois pontos distintos do complexo portuário: o primeiro, em uma área potencialmente contaminada e o segundo em uma livre de contaminação (controle), propondo-se a criação de uma rede de sensores nesses locais. Empregou-se dados cedidos por Carvalho-Neta (2007) cuja pesquisa contou com a captura de peixes nesses perímetros, submetendo-os posteriormente a análise laboratorial para medição da atividade enzimática da Glutationa s- Transferase (GST) e Catalase (CAT), tendo todos os resultados processados e registrados em bio-ontologia. O núcleo da solução do Sistema Multiagente baseia-se nos resultados oriundos da análise bioquímica da GST, inspirando a modelagem de agente de software que simula o comportamento desta enzima. Todos esses dados foram registrados em bio-ontologia. A solução contempla também uma aplicação executada em dispositivos móveis que realiza a coleta das variáveis abióticas nos pontos selecionados, valida-as e realiza a inferência daquelas que não puderam ser coletadas. O Sistema Multiagente para Monitoramento Ambiental do Complexo Portuário da Ilha de São Luís, portanto, é constituído pelo conjunto da bio-ontologia, rede de sensores, aplicação móvel de coleta e inferência de dados das condições do meio ambiente, agentes de software para simulação de análise bioquímica, cálculo da atividade da GST e outros agentes relacionados à manutenção e segurança do SMA.

Submitted by Maria Aparecida (cidazen@gmail.com) on 2017-08-16T14:43:36Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Osevaldo.pdf: 5559401 bytes, checksum: 1ce073c772c3403a0b7875f9f9a13ed9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-16T14:43:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Osevaldo.pdf: 5559401 bytes, checksum: 1ce073c772c3403a0b7875f9f9a13ed9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-02-09 / FAPEMA, CAPES / This work leads to the modeling and implementation of a multi-agent application of faults selection and decision making for VALE’s rotary railcar dumpers. The work explore development approaches and knowledge-based achtectures aiming to SADDEM build, a multi-agent system applyed to decision making in ore unload cells. The particularities of cognitives agents structures are based on Jess inference engine in order to link decisions and maintain plans recommendations made by the system. The ontology is developed throught elicitation of information and knowledge during interviews and VV311-K01 car positioner set operating activities. The artifacts produced during the development clycle phases employs PASSI methodology technics, Artificial Intelligence and support engineering to software development using JADE framework. The real time module is linked to the software of supervision and monitoring of the unloading cell productions of VALE. / Este trabalho apresenta a modelagem e implementação de um aplicação multiagente para a seleção de falhas e tomada de decisão em viradores de vagões da VALE. A proposta investiga abordagens de desenvolvimento e arquiteturas baseadas no conhecimento para criação do SADDEM, um sistema multiagente aplicado ao apoio a decisão em células de descarga de minério. As particularidades das estruturas cognitivas de agentes são baseadas no mecanismo inferência Jess, objetivando encadear decisões e recomendações de planos de manutenção feitas pelo sistema. A ontologia do sistema é elaborada por meio das informações e conhecimento eliciados durante entrevista e atividades operacionais referentes ao conjunto carro posicionador observadas no equipamento virador de vagões VV311- K01. Os artefatos produzidos durante as fases do ciclo de desenvolvimento têm a aplicação das técnicas da metodologia PASSI, Inteligência Artificial e das engenharias de apoio ao desenvolvimento de software com uso do framework JADE. O módulo de tempo real do sistema está vinculado ao software de supervisão e monitoramento das células de produção do setor de descarga de minério da VALE.

Submitted by Maicon Juliano Schmidt (maicons) on 2015-04-28T19:02:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Agnaldo Martins Rodrigues.pdf: 3935190 bytes, checksum: 46b1f019444554c37a2d064289176869 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-28T19:02:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Agnaldo Martins Rodrigues.pdf: 3935190 bytes, checksum: 46b1f019444554c37a2d064289176869 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-01-31 / Nenhuma / Com o uso crescentedas tecnologias de informação e comunicação na área educacional, torna-se cada vez mais necessária a criação de ferramentas de apoio ao professor, capazes de auxiliá-lo no planejamento e execução das aulas, bem como no acompanhamento do processo de ensino-aprendizagem. Em alguns casos, o acesso a essas tecnologias, aliado ao conhecimento técnico limitado por parte dos docentes, pode comprometera maneira com que os conteúdos são desenvolvidos e utilizados pelos alunos. Essa é a principal área de pesquisa da presente dissertação, que se propõe a ajudar a tornar mais proficiente esse processo, pelo menos no contexto do ensino de dedução natural na disciplina de Lógica, através da criação de uma ferramenta inteligente de autoria e acompanhamento de uso de materiais educacionais, na forma de objetos de aprendizagem. A ferramenta, denominada SAAPIEnS,torna possível que o professor elabore objetos de aprendizagem customizáveis no domínio específico de dedução natural na lógica proposicional. Com base em um conjunto de ações, regradas por estratégias de ensino, almeja-se também instrumentalizar o docente no acompanhamento das atividades realizadas pelos alunos no ambiente computacional, apoiando o processo de avaliação do nível dedesempenho alcançado pelos alunos. Isso é feito por meio de um subsistema que oferece serviços de visualização e análise de dos conjuntos de interações dos alunos com os objetos de aprendizagem. A ferramenta é disponibilizada tanto via Web quanto via local (desktop), visando a uma maior flexibilidade para professor e alunos. Os possíveis impactos dessa ferramenta foram avaliados através de cenários hipotéticos de uso, que ilustram as principais contribuições possíveis para esse tipo de ferramenta. / With the increasing use of information and communication technologies in education, it becomes necessary to create supporting tools which can assist teachers in planning and implementing lessons as well as monitoring the process of teaching and learning. In some cases, access to these technologies, coupled with limited technical knowledge on the part of teachers, can compromise the way the contents are developed and used by students. This is the main research area of this dissertation, which aims to make this process more proficient, at least in the context of teaching natural deduction in the discipline of logic, through the creation of an intelligent authoring tool of learning objects, which also allows the teacher to follows the use of these educational materials by students. The tool, called SAAPIEnS, makes it possible for the teacher to prepare customizable learning objects in the specific domain of natural deduction in propositional logic. Based on a set of actions, regulated by a set of teaching strategies, the goal is to help teachers to monitor the activities performed by students in the computing environment, supporting the process of assessing the level of performance achieved by the students. This is done by means of a subsystem, which offers visualization and analysis service of the sets of interactions of students with learning objects. The tool supports Web and local (desktop) interfaces, giving greater flexibility for teachers and students. The possible impacts of this tool were evaluated through hypothetical usage scenarios that illustrate the main possible contributions to this type of tool.

Cette thèse considère principalement trois problèmes dans le domaine du contrôle distribué coopératif des systèmes multi-agents(SMA): le consensus, la navigation en formation et le maintien en formation d’un groupe d’agents lorsqu’un agent disparait. Nous proposons 3 algorithmes pour résoudre le problème du calcul distribué d’un consensus à partir de l’approche leadeur-suiveur dans le contexte SMA à dynamique non-linéaire. La référence est définie comme un leader virtuel dont on n’obtient, localement, que les données de position et de vitesse. Pour résoudre le problème du suivi par consensus pour les SMA à dynamique non-linéaire, nous considérons le suivi par consensus pour SMA de premier ordre. On propose des résultats permettant aux suiveurs de suivre le leadeur virtuel en temps fini en ne considérant que les positions des agents. Ensuite, nous considérons le suivi par consensus de SMA de second. Dans le cas de la planification de trajectoire et la commande du mouvement de la formation multi-agents. L’idée est d’amener la formation, dont la dynamique est supposée être en 3D, d’une configuration initiale vers une configuration finale (trouver un chemin faisable en position et orientation) en maintenant sa forme tout le long du chemin en évitant les obstacles. La stratégie proposée se décompose en 3 étapes. Le problème du Closing-Rank se traduit par la réparation d’une formation rigide multi-agents "endommagée" par la perte de l'un de ses agents. Nous proposons 2 algorithmes d’autoréparation systématique pour récupérer la rigidité en cas de perte d'un agent. Ces réparations s’effectuent de manière décentralisée et distribuée n’utilisant que des informations de voisinage / This dissertation focuses on distributed cooperative control of multi-agent systems. First, the leader-following consensus for multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics is investigated. Three consensus algorithms are proposed and some sufficient conditions are obtained for the states of followers converging to the state of virtual leader globally exponentially. Second, the consensus tracking for multi-agent systems with nonlinear dynamics is investigated. Some consensus tracking algorithms are developed, and some sufficient conditions are obtained. Based on these consensus tracking algorithms and sufficient conditions, it is shown that in first-order multi-agent systems all followers can track the virtual leader in finite time, and in second-order multi-agent systems the consensus tracking can be achieved at least globally exponentially. Third, the path planning and motion control of multi-agent formation is studied, where a practical framework is provided. In order to find a collision-free and deadlock-free feasible path for the whole formation, an optimizing algorithm is given to optimize the path generated by A* search algorithm. In order to realize the cohesive motion of a persistent formation in 3-dimensional space, a set of decentralized control laws is designed. Finally, the formation keeping problem is studied. We mainly focus on the closing ranks problem, which deals with the addition of links to a rigid multi-agent formation that is “damaged" by losing one of its agents, in order to recover rigidity. Some graph theoretical results are obtained, and some systematic ’self-repair’ operations are proposed to recover the rigidity in case of agent removals

Pour arriver à gérer les changements fréquents des exigences des clients, des produits de plus en plus complexes et faire face à une concurrence de plus en plus dure, les organisations cherchent sans cesse à améliorer l’utilisation de leur portefeuille de connaissances.On remarque ainsi, que depuis une quinzaine d’années, bon nombre d’entre elles ont commencé à structurer leur démarche de gestion des connaissances. Ces démarches ont pour but de résoudre un ou plusieurs des problèmes suivants : le départ en retraite de cadres qui détiennent une connaissance critique, le partage de bonnes pratiques développées par une unité de production, la stimulation de l’innovation d’un centre de recherche, etc. Dans la réalité, la mise en place effective de ces initiatives soulève de nombreux problèmes liés tantôt à la nature tacite de la connaissance, à l’existence de barrières culturelles qu’à l’adoption d’un système logiciel de gestion des connaissances. Cette thèse se situe dans le cadre général de la gestion des connaissances lors du processus de conception de produits. Nous nous intéressons en particulier aux problématiques de la capitalisation et de la réutilisation des connaissances dans le processus de conception collaborative et routinière à l'aide d'un système logiciel de gestion des connaissances. L’objectif principal de cette thèse est de proposer un Système de Gestion des Connaissances (SGC) pour la capitalisation et la réutilisation des connaissances, fondé sur une approche organisationnelle et le paradigme des Systèmes Multi-Agents (SMA). Le choix des SMA est naturel car il permet la modélisation et l'implémentation des SGC comme des systèmes distribués où des acteurs différents (les acteurs métiers), agissent de manière autonome pour atteindre un but précis et interagissent afin de réaliser un but commun. Nous proposons une modélisation de système de gestion des connaissances (SGC) qui s'appuie sur la méthodologie ASPECS dédiée à l'analyse, la conception et le déploiement de systèmes complexes. Cette démarche d'analyse et de conception permet de mettre en évidence les objectifs d'un SGC et les principaux mécanismes de son fonctionnement. Parmi les activités d'ASPECS, l'identification des besoins se fait par une approche orientée buts qui permet la modélisation des objectifs du SGC ainsi que les acteurs impliqués et leurs dépendances.La contribution de cette thèse est composée de deux parties. La première consiste en l'analyse du domaine de la gestion des connaissances en ayant à l'esprit l'objectif de développer un SGC basé sur une approche organisationnelle qui met l’accent sur les aspects sociaux et coopératifs du processus de conception et qui gère la réutilisation des connaissances. La deuxième partie vise à la conception d'un SMA sous la forme d’un collecticiel mettant en œuvre notre approche de réutilisation des connaissances au fil de l’eau. / In order to manage the frequent changes in customer requirements, products increasingly complex and face an extreme hard and tougher competition; organizations are always seeking to improve the use of their knowledge portfolio. Thus, it is noted that since fifteen years, many of them have begin to structure their approach to knowledge management. These steps are designed to solve one or more of the following: the retirement of executives who have critical knowledge, sharing the best practices developed by a unit of production, the stimulation of innovation research center etc. In reality, the actual implementation of these initiatives raises many issues now with the tacit nature of knowledge, the existence of cultural barriers to the adoption of a software system for knowledge management. This thesis is in the general framework of knowledge management in the process of product design. We are particularly interested in issues of capitalization and reuse of knowledge in the collaborative design process and routinely using a software system for knowledge management. The main objective of this thesis is to provide a Knowledge Management System (KMS) for capitalization and reuse of knowledge, based on an organizational approach and the paradigm of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). The choice of MAS is natural because it allows the modeling and implementation of KMS as distributed systems where different actors (business actors) act independently to achieve a specific purpose and interact to achieve a common goal. We propose a model of knowledge management system (KMS) based on the methodology ASPEC dedicated to the analysis, design and deployment of complex systems. This approach allows analysis and design to highlight the objectives of a KMS and the major mechanisms of its functioning. The activities of ASPEC, the identification of needs are a goal-oriented approach that allows modeling of the targets of KMS and the actors involved and their dependencies. The contribution of this thesis is composed of two parts. The first is the analysis of the field of knowledge management, bearing in mind the objective to develop a KMS based on an organizational approach that focuses on social and collaborative design process and manages reuse of knowledge. The second part is to design a MAS as a groupware implementing our approach to reuse of knowledge.

L’évolution du Web et de ses applications subit depuis quelques années une mutation vers les technologies qui incluent la dimension sociale comme entité de première classe. Nous témoignons dans le passage du Web 1.0 au Web 2.0 puis au Web 3.0, 4.0 etc.. que les utilisateurs et les réseaux sociaux qui se forment sont au centre de cette évolution. Le web exhibe aussi toutes les caractéristiques d’un système complexe. Ces propriétés systèmes complexes et cette dimension sociale doivent être prises en considération lors de la conception et le développement des applications web. Considérons le cas des systèmes de tagging ou d’étiquetage collaboratifs. Ces systèmes sont un exemple de systèmes complexes, auto-organisés et socialement conscients. Le paradigme des systèmes multi-agents coordonné par les mécanismes d’auto-organisations a été utilisé d’une façon effective pour la conception et modélisation des systèmes complexes. Les systèmes de tagging collaboratifs actuels ne prennent pas l’avantage complet de leurs caractéristiques systèmes complexes, surtout dans l’adaptation à leur environnement et l’émergence de nouvelles fonctionnalités. Dans ce travail de thèse, nous proposons un modèle pour la conception et développement d’un nouveau système d’étiquetage collaboratif MySURF (My Similar Users, Resources, Folksonomies), utilisant une approche multi-agents gouvernée par la coévolution des organisations sociales et spatiales des agents. Nous montrons comment ce système proposé offre plusieurs nouvelles fonctionnalités qui peuvent améliorer les systèmes d’étiquetage collaboratifs actuels. / The evolution of the Web and its applications has undergone in the last few years a mutation towards technologies that include the social dimension as a first class entity. We are witnessing in the evolution of the web from the web 1.0 to web 2.0 to web 3.0 and eventually web 4.0 that the users, their interactions and the emerging social networks are in the center of this evolution. The web also exhibits all the characteristics of a complex system. These complex systems properties and this social dimension must be taken into consideration in the design and the development of new web applications. Let us consider the case of collaborative tagging systems. These systems are an example of complex, self-organized and socially aware systems. The multi-agent systems paradigm coordinated by self-organizations mechanisms was used in an effective way for the design and modeling of the complex systems. Current collaborative tagging systems do not take full advantage of the characteristics of complex systems, especially in adapting to their environment and the emergence of new features. In this thesis, we propose a model for the design and development of a new collaborative tagging system MySURF (My Similar Users, Resources, Folksonomies), using a multi-agent system approach governed by the coevolution of the social and spatial organization of the agents. We show how the proposed system offers several new features that can improve current collaborative tagging systems.

<p>Autonomous agent systems are systems in which many simple entities, called “agents”, interact with each other. The behaviour resulting from such interactions can be much more complex than that of the individual agents. A group of interacting agents can for example accomplish tasks that no single agent could.</p> <p>Nature provides several examples of autonomous agent systems, such as flocks of birds and insects, schools of fish, and anthills. Progresses in robotics, electronics and telecommunications make it now also possible to design such systems in order to accomplish particular tasks, such as the surveillance or exploration of areas, or the maintenance of some environments.</p> <p>In this thesis, we analyze two issues related to autonomous agent systems, and more precisely, to the influence of the inter-agent communication network on the system behaviour. In a first part, we consider the problem of preserving the shape of a multi-agent formation by explicitly maintaining the distances between some agents constant. We study the case of distance constraints that are unilateral, that is, constraints for which the responsibility is given to a one of the two agents concerned. This leads to the notions of persistence and constraint consistence. The second part is devoted to the consensus problems: agents have a value which they update by averaging that of other agents. Eventually, all agents may obtain a common value, in which case we say that the system reaches a consensus. One major difficulty in the study of such system is the possible dependence of the interaction and communication topology on the values of the agents. We study two paradigmatic systems in which this dependence can be taken into account, and obtain results on their convergence and on the stability of their equlibria.</p>

Design, production and development of individual mini/micro robots and then formation of their cooperative colony are the main topics of this thesis. The produced mini/micro robots are as small and light as possible. In addition, they are multifunctional (programmable), flexible and intelligent while maintaining a very low production cost. Mini/micro robots, called MinT-DB series are able to communicate with each other to work cooperatively. Moreover, these robots can be the basis for the future studies considering the application of artificial intelligence and modeling of live colonies in the nature. Traditional design, production and assembly techniques have been used widely up to now. However, none of them were related with the mini/micro scale. Therefore, this thesis can help people in understanding the difficulties of the design, production, and assembly of the mini/micro systems under the light of the reported science. In this thesis, instead of examining a specific application field of mini/micro robotic systems, a technology demonstrative work is carried out. Therefore, this thesis contributes to the mini/micro robotic technology, which is also very new and popular in today&amp / #8217 / s world, with the robots having the dimensions of 7.5x6x6 cm.

In this thesis, we study how and to what extent a self-organized mobile robot flock can be guided by informing some of the robots within the flock about a preferred direction of motion. Specifically, we extend a flocking behavior that was shown to maneuver a swarm of mobile robots as a cohesive group in free space, avoiding obstacles. In its original form, this behavior does not have a preferred direction and the flock would wander aimlessly. In this study, we incorporate a preference for a goal direction in some of the robots. These informed robots do not signal that they are informed (a.k.a. unacknowledged leadership) and instead guide the swarm by their tendency to move in the desired direction. Through experimental results with physical and simulated robots we show that the self-organized flocking of a robot swarm can be effectively guided by an informed minority of the flock. We evaluate the system using a number of quantitative metrics: First, we propose to use the mutual information metric from Information Theory as a dynamical measure of the information exchange. Then, we discuss the accuracy metric from directional statistics and size of the largest cluster as the measures of system performance. Using these metrics, we perform analyses from two points of views: In the transient analyses, we demonstrate the information exchange between the robots as the time advances, and the increase in the accuracy of the flock when the conditions are suitable for an adequate amount of information exchange. In the steady state analyses, we investigate the interdependent effects of the size of the flock in terms of the robots in it, the ratio of informed robots in the flock over the total flock size, the weight of the direction preference behavior, and the noise in the system.