Modular behaviors in heterogeneous groups of mobile robots

We provide an overview of the software components underlying four different tasks performed by a heterogeneous group of mobile robots. These tasks are drawn from three domains 1. Robot Competitions (Robot Soccer and Find Life on Mars), 2. Security and Surveillance (Perimeter Protection) and 3. Building Environmental Models (Multi-Robot Navigation and Mapping). Once decomposed as a set of cooperating behaviors, we show how these (seemingly unrelated) tasks lead to similar solutions as far as their modular breakdown is concerned, thereby yielding high reusability. Although our collection of robot platforms is notably diverse in terms of mechanics, sensory and computational capabilities, cross-platform migration and extension of existing behavior assemblages require minimal programming effort.

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