Internalized plans for communication-sensitive robot team behaviors

Abstract

Autonomous teams of robots operating in a dynamic, adversarial environment stand to benefit from using all available resources. But how can knowledge be used to construct a plan that does not interfere with the robots ability to react to its environment? In this research we distill abstract representation into a plan usable by a reactive behavior-based architecture. This plan is then exploited to enhance the performance of a team of robots tasked with maintaining communications while performing reconnaissance. Utilizing multiple plans in serial and in parallel is shown via simulation to be a promising method for increasing mission performance. We conclude that the utility of these internalized plans warrants further investigation as a method for imbuing reactive agents with a priori knowledge.