Lessons Learned in the Implementation of a Multi-robot Trash-collecting Team

Abstract

This paper describes lessons learned in the design, construction and programming of a team of three reactive trash-collecting robots. The robots placed first in the Office Cleanup Event at the 1994 AAAI Mobile Robot Competition. The discussion includes details of multiagent cooperation, color vision for the detection of perceptual object classes, temporal sequencing of behaviors for task completion, and a language for specifying motor schema-based robot behaviors. We also address questions regarding architectual design choices in the robots' construction. Introduction Georgia Tech's team of robots, Io, Ganymede and Callisto, (Figure 1) placed first in the "Clean Up the Office" event at the 1994 Robot Competition sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). The contest required competing robots to clean up a messy office strewn with trash. Wads of paper, styrofoam coffee cups and soda cans were placed by judges throughout the contest arena along with wast..