This paper presents the design of a biologically-inspired algorithm, as well as the design and development of a new highly flexible multi-agent platform for a cooperative robotic system, to be applied to the localization of a gas source in an indoor environment with no strong airflow. The platform consists of a central PC and a variable number of robots. The robots cooperate, can communicate with each other, even when exchanging complex messages, and present a swarm-like behavior, which optimizes the gas localization task. The inexpensive, multipurpose, scalable, highly flexible platform whose use is discussed in this paper investigates the efficiency of bio-inspired cooperative algorithms, to detect the odor source location