Information invariants for distributed manipulation

Abstract

In [Don4], we described a manipulation task for cooperating mobile robots that can push large, heavy objects. There, we asked whether explicit local and global communication between the agents can be removed from a family of pushing protocols. In this paper, we answer in the affirmative. We do so by using the general methods of [Don4] analyzing information invariants. The author's current address is Department of Computer Science, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. y The author's current address is Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. 1 This paper describes research done in the Robotics and Vision Laboratory at Cornell University. Support for our robotics research is provided in part by the National Science Foundation under grants No. IRI-8802390, IRI-9000532, and by a Presidential Young Investigator award, and in part by the Air Force Office of Sponsored Research, the Mathematical Sciences Institute, Intel Corporation, and...