Models and algorithmic approaches for cooperative multi-robot systems: thesis abstract

The subject of multi-robot systems has been thoroughly investigated in the past decade (e.g., [9, 12, 11, 7]). Current research in multi-robot systems can be divided, roughly, according to two aspects: theoretical robotics (e.g. [12]) and practical robotics (e.g. [10]). Theoretical robotics research, in many cases, make unrealistic assumptions on the robots' capabilities. For example, robots are sometime assumed to have unlimited visibility [8], or limited radius of visibility but omnidirectional [6]. In practice, it is usually not the case --- robots have a limited angle of visibility along with limited radius of visibility. On the other hand, practical robotics research is driven, in many cases, by the will to solve problems, thus tend to be proven only for a specific robotic system.