CAMPOUT: a control architecture for tightly coupled coordination of multirobot systems for planetary surface exploration

Abstract

Abstract-Exploration of high risk terrain areas such as cliff faces and site construction operations by autonomous robotic systems on Mars requires a control architecture that is able to autonomously adapt to uncertainties in knowledge of the environment. We report on the development of a software/hardware framework for cooperating multiple robots performing such tightly coordinated tasks. This work builds on our earlier research into autonomous planetary rovers and robot arms. Here, we seek to closely coordinate the mobility and manipulation of multiple robots to perform examples of a cliff traverse for science data acquisition, and site construction operations including grasping, hoisting, and transport of extended objects such as large array sensors over natural, unpredictable terrain. In support of this work we have developed an enabling distributed control architecture called control architecture for multirobot planetary outposts (CAMPOUT) wherein integrated multirobot mobility and control mechanisms are derived as group compositions and coordination of more basic behaviors under a task-level multiagent planner. CAMPOUT includes the necessary group behaviors and communication mechanisms for coordinated/cooperative control of heterogeneous robotic platforms. In this paper, we describe CAMPOUT, and its application to ongoing physical experiments with multirobot systems at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, for exploration of cliff faces and deployment of extended payloads.

Autonomous construction using scarce resources in unknown environments

“…Some of these target construction systems for specific tasks, such as structure assembly in extraterrestrial settings (Stroupe et al 2006;Huntsberger et al 2003), in orbit (Everist et al 2004;Ueno et al 2003), or for assembling vertical trusses (Lindsey et al 2011). Some works explore how to integrate a human in the loop to handle contingencies (Sellner et al 2006).…”

The Design of a Pair of Identical Mobile Robots to Investigate Cooperative Behaviours

“…Three major applications of co-operative robotic behaviour are transportation, sensing and foraging. Cooperative transportation involves multiple robots transporting objects from one location to another and has been exhibited in robot soccer teams (Shim et al, 1997, andde la Rosa et al, 1997) as well as in box pushing (Mataric et al, 1995) and object lifting and carrying (Huntsberger et al, 2003). Cooperative sensing develops a group robotic system for map building and localization for navigation and exploration (Sossai et al, 1999 andYamauchi, 1999).…”

“…This implementation has also shown the advantage of robustness in the face of failures. CAMPOUT, a distributed control architecture for tightly coupled coordination of multiple robot systems is being developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Huntsberger et al, 2003). It has been applied to ongoing physical experiments involving the exploration of cliff faces and the deployment of extended payloads.…”

“…A behaviour-based architecture (reactive system) (Brooks, 1986) for the individual robots is being constructed for the coordination layer using neural networks and fuzzy logic. (Mataric et al, 1995, Huntsberger et al, 2003, Parker, 1998and Jung & Zelinsky, 1999 have also used behaviour-based approaches.…”

K-ICNP: a Multi-Robot Management Platform

“…So far, there are many researches proposing various approaches facing to different requests. For example, Huntsberger (Huntsberger, 2003) proposed a software/hardware framework for co-operating multiple robots performing tightly coordinated tasks, such as exploration of high-risk terrain areas. Yoshida (Yoshida, 2003) developed a system for sharing a common coordinate system so that multiple robots can be operated in the same environment.…”