Real time movement coordination technique based on flocking behaviour for multiple mobile robots system

Abstract

The emergent behaviour of a multiagent system depends on the component agents and how they interact. A critical part of interaction between agents is communication. This paper presents a multi-agent communication model for physical moving agents, robots. The scope of the paper emphasises the interaction relationships between individual components in multi-agents system that results in economical and social emergent behaviour. The proposed theory of communication integrates animal intelligence technique together with a cognitive intelligence one. This results in a local coordination of movements, and global task coordination. Accordingly, agents are designed to locally communicate with other agents in order to coordinate their movements via a set of flocking rules. A flocking algorithm is used because it satisfies a major objective, i.e. it has a real time response to local environmental changes and minimises the cost of path planning. A higher level communication mechanism is implemented for task distribution that is carried out via a blackboardlike conversation with a ground based controller.