  In the last few decades we have witnessed how the pheromone of social insect
has become a rich inspiration source of swarm robotics. By utilising the
virtual pheromone in physical swarm robot system to coordinate individuals and
realise direct/indirect inter-robot communications like the social insect,
stigmergic behaviour has emerged. However, many studies only take one single
pheromone into account in solving swarm problems, which is not the case in real
insects. In the real social insect world, diverse behaviours, complex
collective performances and flexible transition from one state to another are
guided by different kinds of pheromones and their interactions. Therefore,
whether multiple pheromone based strategy can inspire swarm robotics research,
and inversely how the performances of swarm robots controlled by multiple
pheromones bring inspirations to explain the social insects' behaviours will
become an interesting question. Thus, to provide a reliable system to undertake
the multiple pheromone study, in this paper, we specifically proposed and
realised a multiple pheromone communication system called ColCOS$\Phi$. This
system consists of a virtual pheromone sub-system wherein the multiple
pheromone is represented by a colour image displayed on a screen, and the
micro-robots platform designed for swarm robotics applications. Two case
studies are undertaken to verify the effectiveness of this system: one is the
multiple pheromone based on an ant's forage and another is the interactions of
aggregation and alarm pheromones. The experimental results demonstrate the
feasibility of ColCOS$\Phi$ and its great potential in directing swarm robotics
and social insects research.
