Automatic resource allocation in industrial multirobot systems

The paper proposes a methodology for robot programming, based on the concept of automatically assigning available physical resources to the tasks to be performed during program execution, rather than specifying them in the user program. This is specially useful in multirobot systems, when several similar machines are included in the same robotized cell, and when the system has to cope with unpredictable length operations. The most interesting feature of the system appears to be its capability of maintaining good performance in those situations where, due to faulty robots, to sudden changes in the production cycle, etc., traditional scheduling and optimization techniques fail to succeed. The paper includes a discussion of the main advantages and drawbacks of the technique, together with some experimental results.