On the design of multi-robot systems

For an efficient design of multi-robot systems it is of interest to consider not only parts of the hierarchical structure but to develop a complete control concept including the dynamics of the robots involved. In spite of high practical interest relatively little work has been done on these topics so far. In the paper, the structure of multi-robot systems based on the nonlinear control approach is considered and a design method including the hierarchical coordinator is presented. The new approach is applied to the collision avoidance of two robots working on a conveyor belt with a common working space.