A Multi-Robot System for Anticipatory Experiments

Abstract

During the years 2005 and 2006 a robot system has been developed at Lund University Cognitive Science to run navigation experiments in a dynamic environment. The main aim of the system is to study anticipation during navigation, model building, color tracking, navigation algorithms, social robotics and children’s games. This technical report describes the hardware and software used in the system. The system consists of two small two-wheeled robots, which are tracked using color markers using an overhead camera. The robots are controlled by a computer that handles tracking, navigation, motor control and the experiment control for each robot. Two setups are presented with example of the implementation of the integrated parts which can be used to run the system either in simulation or with the real robots. Currently, only two robots are supported, but in the final phase the system will handle six robots.