Co-operant mobile robots for industrial applications

An alternative approach to task achievement via a single sophisticated robotic device is to use a number of technically simpler devices which communicate and co-operate to achieve a complex task. This paper presents a methodology for executing complex tasks using multiple, autonomous robots. The robots are identical and there is no requirement for a central co-ordinating computer. To implement co-operation, a powerful behavioural control architecture, the behaviour synthesis architecture, has been developed, along with complementary sensor based communications and appropriate sensing and actuation systems. These ideas have been implemented on two mobile robots, which demonstrate co-operative behaviour by acting in unison to transport a pallet through an unstructured environment