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25 pages, 967 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Spatial Queuing-Based Algorithm for Multi-Robot Task Allocation

by

William Lenagh

,

Prithviraj Dasgupta

and

Angelica Munoz-Melendez

Robotics 2015, 4(3), 316-340; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics4030316 - 28 Aug 2015

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 6536

Abstract

Multi-robot task allocation (MRTA) is an important area of research in autonomous multi-robot systems. The main problem in MRTA is to allocate a set of tasks to a set of robots so that the tasks can be completed by the robots while ensuring [...] Read more.

Multi-robot task allocation (MRTA) is an important area of research in autonomous multi-robot systems. The main problem in MRTA is to allocate a set of tasks to a set of robots so that the tasks can be completed by the robots while ensuring that a certain metric, such as the time required to complete all tasks, or the distance traveled, or the energy expended by the robots is reduced. We consider a scenario where tasks can appear dynamically and a task needs to be performed by multiple robots to be completed. We propose a new algorithm called SQ-MRTA (Spatial Queueing-MRTA) that uses a spatial queue-based model to allocate tasks between robots in a distributed manner. We have implemented the SQ-MRTA algorithm on accurately simulated models of Corobot robots within the Webots simulator for different numbers of robots and tasks and compared its performance with other state-of-the-art MRTA algorithms. Our results show that the SQ-MRTA algorithm is able to scale up with the number of tasks and robots in the environment, and it either outperforms or performs comparably with respect to other distributed MRTA algorithms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coordination of Robotic Systems)

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22 pages, 2829 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Vision-Based Cooperative Pose Estimation for Localization in Multi-Robot Systems Equipped with RGB-D Cameras

by

Xiaoqin Wang

,

Y. Ahmet Şekercioğlu

and

Tom Drummond

Robotics 2015, 4(1), 1-22; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics4010001 - 26 Dec 2014

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 7835

Abstract

We present a new vision based cooperative pose estimation scheme for systems of mobile robots equipped with RGB-D cameras. We first model a multi-robot system as an edge-weighted graph. Then, based on this model, and by using the real-time color and depth data, [...] Read more.

We present a new vision based cooperative pose estimation scheme for systems of mobile robots equipped with RGB-D cameras. We first model a multi-robot system as an edge-weighted graph. Then, based on this model, and by using the real-time color and depth data, the robots with shared field-of-views estimate their relative poses in pairwise. The system does not need the existence of a single common view shared by all robots, and it works in 3D scenes without any specific calibration pattern or landmark. The proposed scheme distributes working loads evenly in the system, hence it is scalable and the computing power of the participating robots is efficiently used. The performance and robustness were analyzed both on synthetic and experimental data in different environments over a range of system configurations with varying number of robots and poses. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coordination of Robotic Systems)

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29 pages, 563 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Role of Visibility in Pursuit/Evasion Games

by

Athanasios Kehagias

,

Dieter Mitsche

and

Paweł Prałat

Robotics 2014, 3(4), 371-399; https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics3040371 - 08 Dec 2014

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4847

Abstract

The cops-and-robber (CR) game has been used in mobile robotics as a discretized model (played on a graph G) of pursuit/evasion problems. The “classic” CR version is a perfect information game: the cops’ (pursuer’s) location is always known to the robber (evader) [...] Read more.

The cops-and-robber (CR) game has been used in mobile robotics as a discretized model (played on a graph G) of pursuit/evasion problems. The “classic” CR version is a perfect information game: the cops’ (pursuer’s) location is always known to the robber (evader) and vice versa. Many variants of the classic game can be defined: the robber can be invisible and also the robber can be either adversarial (tries to avoid capture) or drunk (performs a random walk). Furthermore, the cops and robber can reside in either nodes or edges of G. Several of these variants are relevant as models or robotic pursuit/evasion. In this paper, we first define carefully several of the variants mentioned above and related quantities such as the cop number and the capture time. Then we introduce and study the cost of visibility (COV), a quantitative measure of the increase in difficulty (from the cops’ point of view) when the robber is invisible. In addition to our theoretical results, we present algorithms which can be used to compute capture times and COV of graphs which are analytically intractable. Finally, we present the results of applying these algorithms to the numerical computation of COV. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coordination of Robotic Systems)

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