Software, Programming, and Run-Time Coordination for Distributed Robotics
Abstract
Our project created and disseminated new technologies for coordinating the behavior of large numbers of form factor constrained mobile robots. Simulations and robotic experiments were created to demonstrate coordination constraints expressed in a controlled theoretic framework in a manner that guarantees performance (time, energy, and comm bandwidth), scales to hundreds of individuals, and supports optimization via reinforcement learning to acquire distributed control policies. We have implemented 10 "uBots" to realize our SDR concept on which we have demonstrated adaptive impedance control, multi-robot coordination and dynamic role assignment, a real-time process scheduler, and wearable interfaces. Applications, including: search and mapping; leader-follower control; and multi-robot behavior for preserving network connectivity among coordinated peers. Performance bounds on an n-robot teams using network-distributed interfaces have been demonstrated as well. Twelve students are involved in our SDR project. We ported control code for autonomous grasping and manipulation gaits for robot hands to our colleagues at NASA-JSC for use in the Robonaut program and our simulation for multi-robot search controllers that maintain line of sight was transferred to colleagues at SPAWAR.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 22, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA418204
Entities
People
- Roderic Grupen
Organizations
- University of Massachusetts Amherst