Control of multiple mobile robot groups

Summary form only given. In studying multiple mobile robot systems (MMRS), interfacing between human users and robots is a very important issue. This is due to the fact that, up to now, it is impossible to have a truly autonomous MMRS. Humans must keep some degree of control, supervision and teleoperation. However, in teleoperation systems for mobile robots it has often assumed that the human user controls only one robot at a time. This approach is very inefficient if we want to apply it to MMRS control. We propose a different paradigm: the human user, instead of controlling the robots individually, will control groups of robots. The method proposed is a very straightforward one. The robots are assumed to be almost without intelligence of their own, with only contact and proximity sensors, and behaving in a very simple and reactive way under certain conditions. Four different commands are defined for the user to instruct the robots to do the required task. A simulation program was written to test the methodology, and the results showed that the system was effective when compared to the control methods that require the user to command the robots one at a time.