Robust Multirobot Coordination in Dynamic Environments

Robustness is crucial for any robot team, especially when operating in dynamic environments. The physicality of robotic systems and their interactions with the environment make them highly prone to malfunctions of many kinds. Three principal categories in the possible space of robot malfunctions are communication failures, partial failure of robot resources necessary for task execution (or partial robot malfunction), and complete robot failure (or robot death). This paper addresses these three categories and explores means by which the TraderBots approach ensures robustness and promotes graceful degradation in team performance when faced with malfunctions.

Authors

• M. Bernardine Dias
• Marc Zinck
• Robert Zlot
• Anthony Stentz

Keywords

• Robustness
• Robot kinematics
• Orbital robotics
• Degradation
• Fault detection
• Fault diagnosis
• Reconnaissance
• Condition monitoring
• Fault tolerance
• Contracts
• Dynamic Environment
• Multi-robot Coordination
• Performance Degradation
• Fault-tolerant
• Team Performance
• Communication Failure
• Partial Failure
• Swarm Robotics
• Team Sports
• Base Station
• Implementation Of Approach
• Applicability Domain
• Auction
• Random Time
• Mobile Platform
• Global Cost
• Laser Ranging
• Start Location
• Traveling Salesman Problem
• Reactive Approach
• Loss Of Communication
• Coordinate Approach
• Global Task
• Combination Of Failure