For many applications a robot team can accomplish tasks much more quickly and effectively than a single unit.
Like in human teams, tasks and roles are divided up and assigned separately to specialist robots – then executed concurrently to save time.
TRACLabs Inc. engineers develop frameworks allowing multiple robots with different capabilities to work together to solve complex problems quickly. These tasks require coordinating unique hardware and software systems to accomplish things like structure assembly or car manufacturing.
Multiple robots need to interact with each other and assume their own specific roles and responsibilities as members of a team. Our planning and execution software assigns roles to robots and coordinates their activities to accomplish these tasks. Just like people roles are assigned to robots based on their capabilities.
- David Kortenkamp, Debra Schreckenghost and Cheryl Martin, User Interaction with Multi-Robot Systems, in Workshop on Multi-Robot Systems, 2002.
- David Kortenkamp, Designing an Architecture for Adjustably Autonomous Robot Teams in PRICAI Workshop Reader, LNAI 2112 , eds. R. Kowalcyk, S. W. Lake, N. Reed, and G. Williams, Springer-Verlag, New York, 2001.
- David Hershberger, Robert Burridge, David Kortenkamp and Reid Simmons, Distributed Visual Servoing with a Roving Eye, in Intelligent Robotics and Systems (IROS) 2000.