Deployment of Heterogeneous Swarm Robotic Agents Using a Task-Oriented Utility-Based Algorithm

In a swarm robotic system, the desired collective behavior emerges from local decisions made by robots, themselves, according to their environment. Swarm robotics is an emerging area that has attracted many researchers over the last few years. It has been proven that a single robot with multiple capabilities cannot complete an intended job within the same time frame as that of multiple robotic agents. A swarm of robots, each one with its own capabilities, are more flexible, robust, and cost-effective than an individual robot. As a result of a comprehensive investigation of the current state of swarm robotic research, this dissertation demonstrates how current swarm deployment systems lack the ability to coordinate heterogeneous robotic agents. Moreover, this dissertation's objective shall define the starting point of potential algorithms that lead to the development of a new software environment interface. This interface will assign a set of collaborative tasks to the swarm system without being concerned about the underlying hardware of the heterogeneous robotic agents. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop a task-oriented software application that facilitates the rapid deployment of multiple robotic agents. The task solutions are created at run-time, and executed by the agents in a centralized or decentralized fashion. Tasks are fractioned into smaller sub-tasks which are, then, assigned to the optimal number of robots using a novel Robot Utility Based Task Assignment (RUTA) algorithm. The system deploys these robots using it's application program interfaces (API's) and uploads programs that are integrated with a small routine code. The embedded routine allows robots to configure solutions when the decentralized approach is adopted. In addition, the proposed application also offers customization of robotic platforms by simply defining the available sensing and actuation devices. Another objective of the system is to improve code and component reusability to reduce efforts in deploying tasks to swarm robotic agents. Usage of the proposed framework prevents the need to redesign or rewrite programs should any changes take place in the robot's platform

Modelo de processamento de imagem, com múltiplas fontes de aquisição, para manipulação aplicada à domótica

Este trabalho foca-se em modelos de processamento de imagem para utilização na visão por computador. Modelos de processamento de imagem com multi-aquisição e/ou em multi-perspectiva, para um conhecimento do meio circundante, com possibilidade de comando e controlo na área da domótica e/ou robótica móvel. Os algoritmos desenvolvidos têm a capacidade de serem implementados em blocos de software ou hardware, de forma independente (autónomos), ou integrados como componentes de um sistema mais complexo. O desenvolvimento dos algoritmos privilegiou o seu elevado desempenho, constrangido pela minimização da carga computacional. Nos modelos de processamento de imagem desenvolvidos foram focados 4 tópicos fundamentais de investigação: a) detecção de movimento de objectos e seres humano em ambiente não controlado; b) detecção da face humana, a ser usada como variável de controlo (entre outras aplicações); c) capacidade de utilização de multi-fontes de aquisição e processamento de imagem, com diferentes condições de iluminação não controladas, integradas num sistema complexo com diversas topologias; d) capacidade de funcionamento de forma autónoma ou em rede distribuída, apenas comunicando resultados finais, ou integrados modularmente na solução final de sistemas complexos de aquisição de imagem. A implementação laboratorial, com teste em protótipos, foi ferramenta decisiva no melhoramento de todos os algoritmos desenvolvidos neste trabalho; IMAGE PROCESSING MODELS, WITH MULTIPLE ACQUISITION SOURCES, FOR MANIPULATION IN DOMOTICS Abstract: This work focuses on image processing models for computer vision. Image processing models with multi-acquisition and/or multi-perspective models were developed to acquire knowledge over the surrounding environment, allowing system control in the field of domotics and/or mobile robotics. The developed algorithms have the capacity to be implemented in software or hardware blocks, independently (autonomous), or integrated as a component in more complex systems. The development of the algorithms was focused on high performance constrained by the computational burden minimization. In the developed image processing models it were addressed 4 main research topics: a) movement detection of objects and human beings in an uncontrolled environment; b) detection of the human face to be used as a control variable (among other applications); c) possibility of using multi-sources of acquisition and image processing, with different uncontrolled lighting conditions, integrated into a complex system with different topologies; d) ability to work as an autonomous entity or as a node integrated on a distributed network, only transmitting final results, or integrated as a link in a complex image processing system. The laboratorial implementation, with prototype tests, was the main tool for the improvement of all developed algorithms, discussed in the present wor

Development and evaluation of vision processing algorithms in multi-robotic systems.

The trend in swarm robotics research is shifting to the design of more complicated systems in which the robots have abilities to form a robotic organism. In such systems, a single robot has very limited memory and processing resources, but the complete system is rich in these resources. As vision sensors provide rich surrounding awareness and vision algorithms also requires intensive processing. Therefore, vision processing tasks are the best candidate for distributed processing in such systems. To perform distributed vision processing, a number of scenarios are considered in swarm and the robotic organism form. In the swarm form, as the robots use low bandwidth wireless communication medium, so the exchange of simple visual features should be made between robots. This is addressed in a swarm mode scenario, where novel distance vector features are exchanged within a swarm of robots to generate a precise environmental map. The generated map facilitates the robot navigation in the environment. If features require encoding with high density information, then sharing of such features is not possible using the wireless channel with limited bandwidth. So methods were devised which process such features onboard and then share the process outcome to perform vision processing in a distributed fashion. This is shown in another swarm mode scenario in which a number of optimisation stages are followed and novel image pre-processing techniques are developed which enable the robots to perform onboard object recognition, and then share the process outcome in terms of object identity and its distance from the robot, to localise the objects. In the robotic organism, the use of reliable communication medium facilitates vision processing in distributed fashion, and this is presented in two scenarios. In the first scenario, the robotic organism detect objects in the environment in distributed fashion, but to get detailed surrounding awareness, the organism needs to learn these objects. This leads to a second scenario, which presents a modular approach to object classification and recognition. This approach provides a mechanism to learn newly detected objects and also ensure faster response to object recognition. Using the modular approach, it is also demonstrated that the collective use of 4 distributed processing resources in a robotic organism can provide 5 times the performance of an individual robot module. The overall performance was comparable to an individual less flexible robot (e.g., Pioneer-3AT) with significant higher processing capability

Cooperation issues and distributed sensing for multirobot systems

This paper considers the properties a multirobot system should exhibit to perform an assigned task cooperatively. Our experiments regard specifically the domain of RoboCup middle-size league (MSL) competitions. But the illustrated techniques can be usefully applied also to other service robotics fields like, for example, videosurveillance. Two issues are addressed in the paper. The former refers to the problem of dynamic role assignment in a team of robots. The latter concerns the problem of sharing the sensory information to cooperatively track moving objects. Both these problems have been extensively investigated over the past years by the MSL robot teams. In our paper, each individual robot has been designed to become reactively aware of the environment configuration. In addition, a dynamic role assignment policy among teammates is activated, based on the knowledge about the best behavior that the team is able to acquire through the shared sensorial information. We present the successful performance of the Artisti Veneti robot team at the MSL Challenge competitions of RoboCup-2003 to show the effectiveness of our proposed hybrid architecture, as well as some tests run in laboratory to validate the omnidirectional distributed vision system which allows us to share the information gathered by the omnidirectional cameras of our robots

Cooperation issues and distributed sensing for multirobot systems

This paper considers the properties a multirobot system should exhibit to perform an assigned task cooperatively. Our experiments regard specifically the domain of RoboCup middle-size league (MSL) competitions. But the illustrated techniques can be usefully applied also to other service robotics fields like, for example, videosurveillance. Two issues are addressed in the paper. The former refers to the problem of dynamic role assignment in a team of robots. The latter concerns the problem of sharing the sensory information to cooperatively track moving objects. Both these problems have been extensively investigated over the past years by the MSL robot teams. In our paper, each individual robot has been designed to become reactively aware of the environment configuration. In addition, a dynamic role assignment policy among teammates is activated, based on the knowledge about the best behavior that the team is able to acquire through the shared sensorial information. We present the successful performance of the Artisti Veneti robot team at the MSL Challenge competitions of RoboCup-2003 to show the effectiveness of our proposed hybrid architecture, as well as some tests run in laboratory to validate the omnidirectional distributed vision system which allows us to share the information gathered by the omnidirectional cameras of our robots