Research into the procedural control of robotic devices has seen a resurgence of interest in recent years. However, work has tended to focus upon solitary mobile robot scenarios as opposed to those situations where multiple mobile robots are required to communicate and co-operate with each other and use their combined functions to achieve a particular task. Researchers at the University of Salford are involved in a long-term research programme into the area of co-operant mobile robots and a novel behaviour synthesis architecture (BSA) has been designed and implemented for the specific purpose of controlling multiple co-operating mobile robots. To illustrate the application of the BSA, the chapter focuses upon a material handling operation, where two mobile robots are given the task of co-operatively relocating an object while having to avoid an obstacle en route. Details of the mobile robots' task achieving behaviour are provided firstly via simulation results, based upon our mathematical model of the BSA, and secondly via the results of having implemented the architecture on two real mobile robots. A discussion of our theoretical and experimental findings is presented and the chapter highlights a number of important areas for future research.

Inspec keywords: industrial robots; materials handling; multi-robot systems; collision avoidance; mobile robots

Other keywords: obstacle avoidance; robotic devices; cooperant mobile robots; robot behaviour synthesis architecture; material handling operation

Subjects: Control applications to materials handling