An efficient cooperative deployment of robots for multiple tasks

In this paper, we introduce an efficient technique that addresses the deployment problem of a team of heterogeneous robots. For multiple scattered tasks in arbitrary space, the objective to be solved is to minimize time for robots to reach all the task locations. In order to reach the assigned task locations efficiently, the team composed of one carrier robot and several servant robots with different motion capabilities is considered. The carrier robot is responsible for transporting and deployment of the servant robots. The servant robot, deployed by the carrier robot, moves to the assigned task location and executes the given task. Then, the overall time to reach all the task locations is determined by considering the path of the carrier that is made by deployment points, and by the maximum time traveled by the servant robots. To find efficient deployment points, the set of all the tasks are iteratively divided into two subsets. Then, an optimal deployment point corresponding to two subsets is calculated by considering the speed of the carrier robot and servant robot, the unloading time for deployment, and few dynamics of the carrier robot. The overall time is computed and compared to the previous result so that the time it takes is continuously reduced. The proposed method has been tested on simulations.