View Chapter

Chapter 53 — Multiple Mobile Robot Systems

Lynne E. Parker, Daniela Rus and Gaurav S. Sukhatme

Within the context of multiple mobile, and networked robot systems, this chapter explores the current state of the art. After a brief introduction, we first examine architectures for multirobot cooperation, exploring the alternative approaches that have been developed. Next, we explore communications issues and their impact on multirobot teams in Sect. 53.3, followed by a discussion of networked mobile robots in Sect. 53.4. Following this we discuss swarm robot systems in Sect. 53.5 and modular robot systems in Sect. 53.6. While swarm and modular systems typically assume large numbers of homogeneous robots, other types of multirobot systems include heterogeneous robots. We therefore next discuss heterogeneity in cooperative robot teams in Sect. 53.7. Once robot teams allow for individual heterogeneity, issues of task allocation become important; Sect. 53.8 therefore discusses common approaches to task allocation. Section 53.9 discusses the challenges of multirobot learning, and some representative approaches. We outline some of the typical application domains which serve as test beds for multirobot systems research in Sect. 53.10. Finally, we conclude in Sect. 53.11 with some summary remarks and suggestions for further reading.

Robots in games and competition

Author  Jong-Hwan Kim, Byung-Kook Kim, Kui-Hong Park, Heung-Soo Kim, Sung-Ho Kim, Jong-Suk Choi

Video ID : 202

The robots play soccer without using encoders or other internal sensors. Only visual information is used as feedback. The robots have an RF communication module.

A robotic reconnaissance and surveillance team

Author  Paul Rybski, Saifallah Benjaafar, John R. Budenske, Mark Dvorak, Maria Gini, Dean F. Hougen, Donald G. Krantz, Perry Y. Li, Fred Malver, Brad Nelson, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, Sascha A. Stoeter, Richard Voyles, Kemel Berk Yesin

Video ID : 203

A two-tiered system for surveillance and exploration tasks is presented. The first tier is the scout (a small mobile sensor platform); the second tier consists of rangers (larger robots that transport and deploy scouts). Scouts send data (commonly video) to other robots via an RF data link.

MARS (multiple autonomous robots)

Author  Camillo J. Taylor, Vijay Kumar

Video ID : 204

The goal of the research is to develop a framework and the support tools for the deployment of multiple autonomous robots in an unstructured and unknown environment, with applications to reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, and the removal of explosive ordnance. The current state of the art in control software enables supervised autonomy, a paradigm in which a human user can command and control one robot using teleoperation and close supervisory control. The objective here is to develop the software framework and tools for a new generation of autonomous robots.

A method for transporting a team of miniature robots

Author  Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos

Video ID : 205

A scout robot is a small robot with a limited battery supply that is used mainly for reconnaissance. This research uses a larger robot to transport the scouts to an area of interest. The scouts can then jump into and out of a platform on the larger robot, thus increasing the distance the scouts can search.

Reconfigurable multi-agents with distributed sensing for robust mobile robots

Author  Robin Murphy

Video ID : 206

In marsupial teams, a mother robot carries one or more daughter robots. This video shows that a mother robot can opportunistically treat daughter robots as surrogate sensors in order to autonomously reconfigure herself to recover from sensor failures.

Miniature air-vehicle, cooperative timing missions

Author  Tim McLain, Randy Beard

Video ID : 207

Small UAVs are used to demonstrate cooperation, including in aerial maneuvers such as flying in formation, intersecting at a point, and landing simultaneously.

Distributed manipulation with mobile robots

Author  Bruce Donald, Jim Jennings, Daniela Rus

Video ID : 208

This video demonstrates cooperative robot pushing without explicit communication.

Autonomous Robot Soccer | Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman

Author  Dennis Hong

Video ID : 209

This video shows some of the first autonomous soccer playing robots. The research is a stepping stone to interconnected robot societies.

A day in the life of a Kiva robot

Author  Mick Mountz

Video ID : 210

Kiva Systems founder and CEO Mick Mountz narrates a play-by-play video of how Kiva robots automate a warehouse environment. http://www.kivasystems.com/

Robot Pebbles - MIT developing self-sculpting smart-sand robots

Author  Kyle Gilpin, Ara Knaian, Kent Koyanagi, Daniela Rus

Video ID : 211

Researchers at the Distributed Robotics Laboratory at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are developing tiny robots that could self-assemble into functional tools, then self-disassemble after use. Dubbed the "smart sand," the tiny robots (measuring 0.1 cubic cm) would contain microprocessors and EG magnets which could latch, communicate, and transfer power to each other, enabling them to form life-size replicas of miniature models. https://groups.csail.mit.edu/drl/wiki/index.php?title=Robot_Pebbles