An Online Planning Framework for Multi-Robot Systems with LTL Specification

We present a framework for deploying a multi-robot system in a dynamic environment where the robots have to react to external events. The specification for the system is given in a sub-class of Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), a widely used logical language for robot motion planning. The LTL specifications capture how the robots should react to different environmental events. We provide a framework for managing the robots through persistent sensing, planning, and monitoring their execution. We formally prove that, under certain assumptions, our framework enables the robots to always satisfy the LTL specifications. Furthermore, we evaluate our technique on two complex use cases using a multi-robot system involving unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) — one on persistent surveillance of critical infrastructure and the other on production management in a factory. Experimental results establish that our technique is scalable and has the potential to be applicable to diverse applications of multi-robot systems in challenging dynamic environments.