General specification of multi-robot control system structures

Abstract

The paper deals with structuring robot control systems. The control system is decomposed into distinct agents. An agent, in general, is responsible for control of its effector, perception of the environment for the purpose of its effector control, and inter-agent communication. The behaviour of the agent is governed by its set of transition functions. The control system consists of two tiers -the upper tier is defined by the flow of information between the agents and the lower tier is defined by formal specification of each agent's behaviour (influence on the environment, gathering sensor readings, production and consumption of the information for/from the other agents). The paper presents one of the examples of utilization of this approach. The example concerns the multi-robot drawing copying system.