ROBUST MULTI-ROBOT COOPERATION THROUGH DYNAMIC TASK ALLOCATION AND PRECAUTION ROUTINES

Sanem Sariel, Tucker Balch, Nadia Erdogan

2006

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a multi-robot cooperation framework to collectively execute inter-dependent tasks of an overall complex mission requiring diverse capabilities. Given a heterogeneous team of robots and task dependencies, the proposed framework provides a distributed mechanism for assigning tasks to robots in an order that efficiently completes the mission. The approach is robust to unreliable communication and robot failures. It is a distributed auction-based approach, and therefore scalable. In order to obtain optimal allocations, effective bid evaluations are needed. Additionally to maintain optimality in noisy environments, dynamic re-allocations of tasks are needed as implemented in dynamic task selection and coalition maintenance scheme that we propose. Real-time contingencies are handled by recovery routines, called Plan B precautions in our framework. Here, in this paper, we present performance results of our framework for robustness in simulations that include variable message loss rates and robot failures. Experiments illustrate robustness of our approach against several contingencies.

References

  1. Balch, T. and Arkin, R. C. (1994). Communication in reactive multiagent systems. Autonomous Robots, 1(1):1- 25.
  2. Decker, K. (1996). Foundations of Distributed Artificial Intelligence, chapter TAEMS: A Framework for Environment Centered Analysis and Design of Coordination Mechanisms, pages 429-448. John Wiley and Sons.
  3. Dias, M. B., Zlot, R. M., Kalra, N., and Stentz, A. (2005). Market-based multirobot coordination: A survey and analysis. Technical Report CMU-RI-TR-05- 13, Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute.
  4. Gerkey, B. and Mataric, M. J. (2004). A formal analysis and taxonomy of task allocation. Intl. J. of Robotics Research, 23(9):939-954.
  5. Graham, R. L. (1966). Bounds for certain multiprocessing anomalies. Bell System Technical Journal, 45:1563- 1581.
  6. Horling, B. and Lesser, V. (2005). A survey of multi-agent organizational paradigms. The Knowledge Engineering Review, 19(4):281-316.
  7. Sariel, S. and Balch, T. (2006). Efficient bids on task allocation for multi-robot exploration. In The 19th International FLAIRS Conference.
  8. Smith, R. G. (1980). The contract net protocol: High level communication and control in a distributed problem solver. IEEE Transaction on Computers C-, 29(12):1104-1113.
Download


Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Sariel S., Balch T. and Erdogan N. (2006). ROBUST MULTI-ROBOT COOPERATION THROUGH DYNAMIC TASK ALLOCATION AND PRECAUTION ROUTINES . In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 2: ICINCO, ISBN 978-972-8865-60-3, pages 196-201. DOI: 10.5220/0001212901960201


in Bibtex Style

@conference{icinco06,
author={Sanem Sariel and Tucker Balch and Nadia Erdogan},
title={ROBUST MULTI-ROBOT COOPERATION THROUGH DYNAMIC TASK ALLOCATION AND PRECAUTION ROUTINES},
booktitle={Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 2: ICINCO,},
year={2006},
pages={196-201},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0001212901960201},
isbn={978-972-8865-60-3},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 2: ICINCO,
TI - ROBUST MULTI-ROBOT COOPERATION THROUGH DYNAMIC TASK ALLOCATION AND PRECAUTION ROUTINES
SN - 978-972-8865-60-3
AU - Sariel S.
AU - Balch T.
AU - Erdogan N.
PY - 2006
SP - 196
EP - 201
DO - 10.5220/0001212901960201