A Distributed Architecture for Mobile Robots Coordination

In many application fields, such as surveillance, monitoring, exploration, and rescuing, the use of multiple coordinated robot units seems to be the most convenient solution, in terms of costs, performance, and efficiency. In this paper we present a distributed real-time architecture for coordinating a set of mobile robot that have to operate according to a common objective. The interaction with the environment causes each unit to operate under real-time constraints, which are enforced by the operating system to achieve a desired level of performance. The design of the architecture has been focused on three main aspects: real-time communication, modularity, and flexibility. The last two aspects are essential in a distributed environment to simplify maintenance and system upgrades. The proposed approach has been implemented on a team of six robot vehicles, equipped with proximity and light sensors, that can operate according to predefined formations.