DISTRIBUTED AND COOPERATIVE OBJECT PUSHING BY MULTIPLE MOBILE ROBOTS BASED ON COMMUNICATION

This paper describes the implementation of distributed and cooperative object pushing by multiple mobile robots based on communication. In o rder to realize a multi-functional, flexible and robust robotic system , we adopted a concept of functional distribution and cooperation. We have been developing a distributed autonomous robotic system, ACTRESS, which is composed of multiple autonomous mobile robots and several wo rkstations. In this paper, cooperation is classified into individual a ction and collaborating action, and both actions are executed by the a ctual mobile robots in task assignment, team organization and synchron ized motion based on communication. To verify the functional effect, w e have integrated these strategies into a cooperative algorithm, and h ave experimented with it by which multiple mobile robots accomplished cooperatively the object pushing. Finally, we show the experimental re sults.