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A Decentralized Architecture for Multi-Robot Systems Based on the Null-Space-Behavioral Control with Application to Multi-Robot Border Patrolling

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Abstract

This paper presents a control architecture for multi-robot systems. The proposed architecture has been developed in the framework of the Null-Space-based-Behavioral (NSB) control, a competitive-collaborative behavior-based control approach. The standard NSB statically determines a set of suitably defined elementary tasks (behaviors) and their priorities, i.e., they cannot be dynamically changed according to mission requirements and environmental constraints. In this paper, a three layer architecture has been designed in order to avoid such a drawback. The single robotic unit (agent) performing the mission is placed on the lower layer. In the middle layer, suitably defined elementary behaviors are defined; these elementary behaviors are then combined, via the NSB approach, in more complex actions. The upper layer is a Supervisor in charge of dynamically selecting the proper action to be executed. As further contribution, the architecture has been applied to the multi-robot border patrolling mission to generate a decentralized, deterministic and non-communicative solution that is robust to faults, and prevents collisions, even in the case of high robot density. Finally, the simulations on a team composed by a large number of robots, and experiments on a real setup, composed by three Pioneer-3DX robots, are provided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettronica e Ingegneria Informatica, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Via Ponte Don Melillo, 84084, Fisciano, SA, Italy

    Alessandro Marino

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Tennessee, 1122 Volunteer Blvd, Knoxville, TN, 37996-3450, USA

    Lynne E. Parker

  3. DIEI - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell’Informazione, Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Via G. Di Biasio 43, 03043, Cassino, FR, Italy

    Gianluca Antonelli

  4. Scuola di Ingegneria, Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Viale dell’Ateneo Lucano 10, 85100, Potenza, Italy

    Fabrizio Caccavale

Authors
  1. Alessandro Marino
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  2. Lynne E. Parker
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  3. Gianluca Antonelli
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  4. Fabrizio Caccavale
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alessandro Marino.

Additional information

The manuscript is based on three conference papers of the same authors, namely, Marino et al. [27–29].

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Marino, A., Parker, L.E., Antonelli, G. et al. A Decentralized Architecture for Multi-Robot Systems Based on the Null-Space-Behavioral Control with Application to Multi-Robot Border Patrolling. J Intell Robot Syst 71, 423–444 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-012-9783-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-012-9783-5

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