Mobile-R: A reconfigurable cooperative control platform for rapid deployment of multi-robot systems

Abstract

Cooperative multi-robot systems have been used in a vast array of fields and are of particular interest in perilous environments. One of the main issues in multi-robot systems is the lack of a common set of programming and control abstractions and middleware. Controlling and programming cooperative multi-robot systems is a highly complicated task that requires a flexible and agile control architecture and programming environment that are able to handle the distributed nature of multi-robot systems. A generalized, highly flexible and reconfigurable cooperative robot control platform called Mobile-R has been developed. Mobile-R consists of a mobile agent-based robot control system and a mission-based rapid deployment system. A real-world validation experiment involving cooperative multi-robot perimeter patrolling is presented.