Shared invariance control for constraint satisfaction in multi-robot systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (10-11) ◽  
pp. 1268-1285
Author(s):  
Melanie Kimmel ◽  
Jannick Pfort ◽  
Jan Wöhlke ◽  
Sandra Hirche
Keyword(s):  
Constraint Satisfaction ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Task Constraints ◽  
Control Approach ◽  
Control Scheme ◽  
Robot Systems ◽  
Invariance Control ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Multi Robot

In systems involving multiple intelligent agents, e.g. multi-robot systems, the satisfaction of environmental, inter-agent, and task constraints is essential to ensure safe and successful task execution. This requires a constraint enforcing control scheme, which is able to allocate and distribute the required evasive control actions adequately among the agents, ideally according to the role of the agents or the importance of the executed tasks. In this work, we propose a shared invariance control scheme in combination with a suitable agent prioritization to control multiple agents safely and reliably. Based on the projection of the constraints into the input spaces of the individual agents using input–output linearization, shared invariance control determines constraint enforcing control inputs and facilitates implementation in a distributed manner. In order to allow for shared evasive actions, the control approach introduces weighting factors derived from a two-stage prioritization scheme, which allots the weights according to a variety of factors such as a fixed task priority, the number of constraints affecting each agent or a manipulability measure. The proposed control scheme is proven to guarantee constraint satisfaction. The approach is illustrated in simulations and an experimental evaluation on a dual-arm robotic platform.

Cluster Space Control of Autonomous Surface Vessels

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Mahacek ◽  
Ignacio Mas ◽  
Ognjen Petrovic ◽  
Jose Acain ◽  
Christopher Kitts
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Navigation ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Control Technique ◽  
Control Approach ◽  
Human In The Loop ◽  
Surface Vessels ◽  
Robot Systems ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Multi Robot

AbstractMulti-robot systems offer many advantages over a single-robot system, including redundancy, coverage and flexibility. One of the key technical considerations in fielding multi-robot systems for real-world applications is the coordination of the individual units. The cluster space control technique promotes simplified specification and monitoring of the motion of mobile multi-robot systems. Previous work has established this approach and has experimentally verified its use for land-based systems consisting of 2-4 robots and with varying implementations ranging from automated trajectory control to human-in-the-loop piloting. In this paper, we describe the design and fabrication of a new low-cost autonomous surface vessel (ASV). The technical system includes a multi-boat system capable of autonomous navigation using the cluster space control technique. It also includes a centralized controller, currently implemented via a shore-based computer that wirelessly receives ASV data and relays drive commands. Using the cluster space control approach, these drive commands allow a pilot to remotely drive a two-ASV cluster or to specify that the two ASVs maintain formation with a third boat. The resulting multi-ASV clusters can be arbitrarily translated, rotated, and resized depending on the needs of a specific application. Experimental results demonstrating these capabilities are provided, and plans for future work are discussed.

scholarly journals Multi-Robot Trajectory Planning and Position/Force Coordination Control in Complex Welding Tasks

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 924 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahui Gan ◽  
Jinjun Duan ◽  
Ming Chen ◽  
Xianzhong Dai
Keyword(s):  
Trajectory Planning ◽  
Cooperative Control ◽  
Impedance Control ◽  
Welding Process ◽  
Coordination Control ◽  
Control Approach ◽  
Force Coordination ◽  
Force Tracking ◽  
Robot Systems ◽  
Multi Robot

In this paper, the trajectory planning and position/force coordination control of multi-robot systems during the welding process are discussed. Trajectory planning is the basis of the position/ force cooperative control, an object-oriented hierarchical planning control strategy is adopted firstly, which has the ability to solve the problem of complex coordinate transformation, welding process requirement and constraints, etc. Furthermore, a new symmetrical internal and external adaptive variable impedance control is proposed for position/force tracking of multi-robot cooperative manipulators. Based on this control approach, the multi-robot cooperative manipulator is able to track a dynamic desired force and compensate for the unknown trajectory deviations, which result from external disturbances and calibration errors. In the end, the developed control scheme is experimentally tested on a multi-robot setup which is composed of three ESTUN industrial manipulators by welding a pipe-contact-pipe object. The simulations and experimental results are strongly proved that the proposed approach can finish the welding task smoothly and achieve a good position/force tracking performance.

scholarly journals Consensus in networked multi-robot systems via local state feedback robust control

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 172988141989354
Author(s):  
Shijie Zhang ◽  
Yi Cao
Keyword(s):  
State Feedback ◽  
Dynamical Equation ◽  
Local Information ◽  
Network Graph ◽  
Robust Controller ◽  
Common Value ◽  
Robot Systems ◽  
Simulation Results ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Multi Robot

In the article, the consensus problem is considered for networked multi-robot systems, in which the dynamical equation of all robots is non-holonomic and nonlinear systems. In the multi-robot systems, each robot updates its current states and receives the states from the neighboring robots. Under the assumption that if the network graph is bidirectional, a local information-based state feedback robust controller is designed to make sure the convergence of the individual robots’ states to a common value. Finally, the effectiveness of the presented method is illustrated by the simulation results of a group of four mobile robots.

scholarly journals Tomographic Feature-Based Map Merging for Multi-Robot Systems

Electronics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heoncheol Lee
Keyword(s):  
Gaussian Mixture Models ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Gaussian Mixture ◽  
Transformation Matrix ◽  
Robot Systems ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Merging Method ◽  
Multi Robot ◽  
Map Merging

Multi-robot systems require collective map information on surrounding environments to efficiently cooperate with one another on assigned tasks. This paper addresses the problem of grid map merging to obtain the collective map information in multi-robot systems with unknown initial poses. If inter-robot measurements are not available, the only way to merge the maps is to find and match the overlapping area between maps. This paper proposes a tomographic feature-based map merging method, which can be successfully conducted with relatively small overlapping areas. The first part of the proposed method is to estimate a map transformation matrix using the Radon transform which can extract tomographically salient features from individual grid maps. The second part is to determine the search space using Gaussian mixture models based on the estimated map transformation matrix. The final part is to optimize an objective function modeled from tomographic information within the determined search space. Evaluation results with various pairs of individual maps produced by simulations and experiments showed that the proposed method can merge the individual maps more accurately than other map merging methods.

Design and Implementation of Distributed Autonomous Coordinators for Cooperative Multi-Robot Systems

2020 ◽  
pp. 324-339
Author(s):  
Gen'ichi Yasuda
Keyword(s):  
Petri Nets ◽  
Discrete Event ◽  
Task Planning ◽  
Multiple Robots ◽  
Robot Systems ◽  
Consistent Manner ◽  
Concurrent Processes ◽  
Robot Cooperation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Multi Robot

The paper presents a systematic method of the design of cooperative task planning and execution for complex robotic systems using multiple robots. Because individual robots can autonomously execute their dedicated tasks, in cooperative multi-robot systems, robotic activities should be designed as discrete event driven asynchronous, concurrent processes. Further, since robotic activities are hierarchically defined, control requirements should be specified in a proper and consistent manner on different levels of control abstraction. In this paper, Petri nets are adopted as a specification tool for task planning and execution by multiple robots. Based on place/transition Petri nets, control conditions for inter-robot cooperation with synchronized interaction are represented, and control rules to achieve distributed autonomous coordinated activities with synchronous and asynchronous communication are proposed. An implementation of net based control software on hierarchical and distributed architecture is presented for an example multi-robot cell, where the higher-level controller executes a global net model of task plan representing cooperative behaviors performed by the robots, and the parallel activities of the individual robots are synchronized through the transmission of requests and the reception of status between the associated lower-level local controllers.

Fuzzy coordination through measure information sharing of multi-robot system: A case study

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Xuefeng Dai ◽  
Jiazhi Wang ◽  
Dahui Li ◽  
Yanchun Wang
Keyword(s):  
Robot System ◽  
Fuzzy Membership Functions ◽  
System A ◽  
Parameter Update Law ◽  
Robot Systems ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Logic Reasoning ◽  
Multi Robot

Multi-robot systems have many potential applications; however, the available results for coordination were based on qualitative information. Fuzzy logic reasoning has a feature of human being thinking, so a novel coordinated algorithm is proposed. The algorithm utilizes sharing sensing information of rooms and semantic robots to coordinating robots in a structured environment exploration. The approach divides all teammate robots into two classes according to robot exploration performance, and divides rooms into large, medium and small ones according to estimations of the individual areas. On the purpose of minimizing exploration time of the system, the reasoning coordination assigns large room to good performance robot, and vice versa. A parameter update law is introduced for fuzzy membership functions. Finally, the results are validated by computer simulations for a structured environment.

Five Capabilities Model Applied to Multi-Robot Systems

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-88
Author(s):  
Atef Gharbi
Keyword(s):  
Production System ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Autonomous Robots ◽  
The Other ◽  
Distributed Planning ◽  
Robot Systems ◽  
Do So ◽  
Multi Robot

This paper deals with distributed Robotic Agents constituting several intelligent agents. Each one has to interact with the other autonomous robots. The problem faced is how to ensure a distributed planning through the cooperation of the distributed robotic agents. To do so, the author proposes to use the concept of five capabilities model which is based on Environment, Self, Planner, Competence, and Communication. A Benchmark Production System is used as a running example to explain the author's contribution.

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