A centralized potential field method for stable operation of a multi-robot dome inspection, repair, and maintenance system

Abstract

In this paper we propose a centralized algorithm for stable operation of a multi-robot dome inspection, repair, and maintenance based on potential field method. The multi-robot system consists of two robots, a leader robot and a supporter robot, connected to each other by two strings. The follower robot sends its information to the leader robot for processing and receiving commands. The leader robot uses the friction model, the slope of the dome detected by the two robots' tilt sensors and the mass of the robots to calculate the stability ranges and determines the proper action to make the whole system stable. The leader robot moves toward its target pose while adjusting the tension of its string using potential field method to combine the attractive and repulsive potentials. The follower robot executes the commands sent by the leader robot to create the most stable configuration for the whole system. It is shown that the algorithm can guarantee stable operation all over a typical dome. The algorithm has been implemented and shown its effectiveness in simulation. Furthermore, the effect of each parameter has been discussed and it is shown that the multi-robot system is capable of completely covering a typical dome using the proposed potential field algorithm.