Hybrid behavioral control architecture for the cooperation of minimalist mobile robots

Abstract

This paper presents a hybrid control architecture based on subsumption and schemas motors principles in order to achieve complex and cooperative tasks. The control architecture implemented is constituted by a set of independent and elementary behaviors organized in layers of skills. Specific low-level behaviors, called altruistic behaviors and inspired by societies of insects (attractive or repulsive signals), are used to improve the efficiency of the control. Therefore, competitive and cooperative mechanisms are used in a unique hybrid architecture of control to perform a complex box-pushing task by a set of mini-robots. The analysis of an elevated number of simulations allows us to have statistical results (time to complete the task was chosen as performance criteria) which show the existence of an optimal number of robots to achieve the box-pushing task and underline the importance of the use of altruistic behaviors to enhance the cooperative task.