Distributed Control of Multi-Robot Systems Engaged in Tightly Coupled Tasks

NASA mission concepts for the upcoming decades of this century include exploration of sites such as steep cliff faces on Mars, as well as infrastructure deployment for a sustained robotic/manned presence on planetary and/or the lunar surface. Single robotic platforms, such as the Sojourner rover successfully flown in 1997 and the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) which landed on Mars in January of 2004, have neither the autonomy, mobility, nor manipulation capabilities for such ambitious undertakings. One possible approach to these future missions is the fielding of cooperative multi-robot systems that have the required onboard control algorithms to more or less autonomously perform tightly coordinated tasks. These control algorithms must operate under the constrained mass, volume, processing, and communication conditions that are present on NASA planetary surface rover systems. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of distributed control algorithms that build on our ear...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2004
• Where: AROBOTS
• Authors: Terrance L. Huntsberger, Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu, Hrand Aghazarian, Paul S. Schenker, Paolo Pirjanian, Hari Das Nayar
• Keywords: AROBOTS 2004, Mars Exploration Rovers, Onboard Control Algorithms, Single Robotic Platforms