The Distributed Control Framework: A software infrastructure for agent-based distributed control and robotics

We address the shortage of available software frameworks for distributed control systems/robotics and describe a novel agent-based software architecture simplifying the development, testing, and deployment of distributed controllers. Our distributed control framework (DCF) provides extensive support for robot team coordination and management, a pluggable architecture for sensing and estimation, robust simulation capabilities with support for hardware in the loop, and a high- level platform-independent programming language for hybrid control called MDLe (motion description language extended). We highlight two experiments that showcase the DCF and MDLe using real robots, and we conclude the paper with the derivation and discussion of an indoor robot navigation system used in our experiments. The navigation system combines robot odometry and range measurements from a network of Cricketreg sensors using an extended Kalman filter.

[1]  Manuela Veloso,et al.  Distributed, Play-Based Role Assignment for Robot Teams in Dynamic Environments , 2006, DARS.

[2]  D. Hristu-Varsakelis,et al.  On the structural complexity of the motion description language MDLe , 2003, 42nd IEEE International Conference on Decision and Control (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37475).

[3]  Andrea L. Bertozzi,et al.  Tracking Environmental Level Sets with Autonomous Vehicles , 2004 .

[4]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  A Framework and Architecture for Multi-Robot Coordination , 2000, ISER.

[5]  Terrance L. Huntsberger,et al.  Behavior-based multi-robot collaboration for autonomous construction tasks , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[6]  Thomas Dall Larsen,et al.  Optimal Fusion of Sensors , 1999 .

[7]  Roger W. Brockett,et al.  On the computer control of movement , 1988, Proceedings. 1988 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[8]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Collaborative multi-robot exploration , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).

[9]  Tucker R. Balch,et al.  Behavior-based formation control for multirobot teams , 1998, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[10]  Takeshi Hirose,et al.  Onboard locating system using real-time image processing for a self-navigating vehicle , 1993, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron..

[11]  James A. Hendler,et al.  Languages, behaviors, hybrid architectures, and motion control , 1998 .

[12]  C. M. Wang,et al.  Location estimation and uncertainty analysis for mobile robots , 1988, Proceedings. 1988 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[13]  Roger W. Brockett,et al.  Hybrid Models for Motion Control Systems , 1993 .

[14]  Liqiang Feng,et al.  Measurement and correction of systematic odometry errors in mobile robots , 1996, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..