A Distributed and Concurrent Framework for Facilitating Cooperation in Dynamic Environments

Abstract

This paper describes a framework that supports concurrent execution of multiple activities required for performing complex, cooperative tasks in dynamic environments. The framework is used for coordinating and managing the development and operation of a system of multi-threaded robotic agents that operate in a distributed spatial environment. Coloured Petri Nets are used to characterise task plans and interactions for the agents, which are situated in environments over which inter-agent communication has a limited range. We show that the multi-agent framework supports adaptive coordination to altered conditions in dynamic environments.