Communication Mechanism in a Distributed System of Mobile Robots

This paper addresses problems of communication and information sharing in the system of heterogenous mobile robots and stationary sensors. We analyze information sharing between robots and sensors treated as agents, and propose a framework based on the Contract Net Protocol. We define the software architecture for the communication system. This architecture, based on an object-oriented library, provides agents with unified communication interfaces.

[1]  Piotr Skrzypczynski,et al.  Experiments and Results in Multimodal, Distributed, Robotic Perception , 2000, DARS.

[2]  Fumihito Arai,et al.  Information sharing among multiple robots for cooperation in cellular robotic system , 1997, Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robot and Systems. Innovative Robotics for Real-World Applications. IROS '97.

[3]  Maja J. Mataric,et al.  Broadcast of Local Elibility for Multi-Target Observation , 2000, DARS.

[4]  Randall Davis,et al.  Frameworks for Cooperation in Distributed Problem Solving , 1988, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[5]  E. Moraleda,et al.  Distributed Task Planner for a Set of Holonic Mobile Robots , 1998, DARS.

[6]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Coordination for Multi-Robot Exploration and Mapping , 2000, AAAI/IAAI.

[7]  Piotr Skrzypczynski,et al.  Multi-agent blackboard architecture for a mobile robot , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Expanding the Societal Role of Robotics in the the Next Millennium (Cat. No.01CH37180).

[8]  Hajime Asama,et al.  Negotiation method for collaborating team organization among multiple robots , 1994 .

[9]  H. P Nii,et al.  Blackboard Systems , 1986 .

[10]  Piotr Skrzypczynski,et al.  Cooperative Perception and World-Model Maintenance in Mobile Navigation Tasks , 1998, DARS.

[11]  Lynne E. Parker,et al.  Heterogeneous multi-robot cooperation , 1994 .

[12]  Tucker R. Balch,et al.  Communication in reactive multiagent robotic systems , 1995, Auton. Robots.

[13]  Andrzej Kasiński,et al.  Perception network for the team of indoor mobile robots: concept, architecture, implementation , 2001 .