Basic Results and Experiments on Robotic Multi-Agent System for Hose Deployment and Transportation

Abstract

We call Linked Multi-Component Robotic Systems (L-MCRS) to a collection of autonomous mobile robots linked through a passive non-rigid physical element. The most basic question about these systems is wether the linking element introduces some differential properties and behaviors that distinguish the L-MCRS from a group of disconnected robots. To answer this question we have modeled the simplest L-MCRS, where the linking element is modeled as a compresible spring, under a distributed cooperative control of the robot units assuming perfect knowledge of their positions. The system’s simulated task is that of trasporting a hose-like object. The simulation results show that the linking element introduces specific dynamical effects, which the cooperative control can not cope with, so the perturbations in one component’s behavior are propagated to the entire system. We also report a proof-ofconcept experiment with a collection of mobile robots autonomously controlled performing the hose transportation along a linear trajectory