Hierarchical multi-robot coordination

Abstract

The complexity and variety of household chores creates conflicting demands on the technical design of domestic robots. One solution for this problem is the coordination of several specialized robots based on the master-slave principle. One robot acts as a master system, tracking and remotely controlling the slave robots. This way, only the master robot needs to be equipped with sophisticated sensors and computing hardware. We implemented a tracking system using an infra-red camera for the master and active markers on the slave robot. The master system is able to interact with the user using natural language. It builds a map of its environment automatically using a laser range finder. It can track a cleaning robot for which we use the commercially available platform "Roomba" by iRobot. The master safely navigates it to a given destination, avoiding obstacles. We successfully demonstrated the system during the RoboCup@Home competitions 2009 in Graz, Austria. We evaluate the performance of the two systems and describe the accuracy of localization and navigation. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.