Cooperatively Transporting Unknown Objects using Mobile Agents

Ryo Takahashi, Munehiro Takimoto, Yasushi Kambayashi

2014

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm for cooperatively transporting objects by multiple robots without any initial knowledge. The robots are connected by communication networks, and the controlling algorithm is based on the pheromone communication of social insects such as ants. Unlike traditional pheromone based cooperative transportation, we have implemented the pheromone as mobile software agents that control the mobile robots corresponding to the ants. The pheromone agent has the vector value pointing to its birth location inside, which is used to guide a robot to the birth location. Since the pheromone agent can diffuse with migrations between robots as well as a physical pheromone, it can attract other robots scattering in a work field to the birth location. Once the robot finds an object, it briefly pushes the object, measuring the degree of the inclination of the object. The robot generates a pheromone agent with the vector value to pusing point suitable for suppressing the inclination of the object. The process of the pushes and generations of pheromone agents enables the efficient transportation of the object. We have implemented a simulator based on our algorithm, and conducted experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Takahashi R., Takimoto M. and Kambayashi Y. (2014). Cooperatively Transporting Unknown Objects using Mobile Agents . In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART, ISBN 978-989-758-016-1, pages 60-68. DOI: 10.5220/0004816400600068

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icaart14,
author={Ryo Takahashi and Munehiro Takimoto and Yasushi Kambayashi},
title={Cooperatively Transporting Unknown Objects using Mobile Agents},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART,},
year={2014},
pages={60-68},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004816400600068},
isbn={978-989-758-016-1},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART,
TI - Cooperatively Transporting Unknown Objects using Mobile Agents
SN - 978-989-758-016-1
AU - Takahashi R.
AU - Takimoto M.
AU - Kambayashi Y.
PY - 2014
SP - 60
EP - 68
DO - 10.5220/0004816400600068