A fleet of autonomous and cooperative mobile robots

We present and discuss a generic cooperative scheme for multirobot cooperation. It is based on an incremental and distributed plan-merging process. We discuss the properties of this cooperative scheme (coherence, detection of dead-lock situations) as well as the class of applications for which it is well suited. We also discuss how this paradigm "fills the gap" between centralized planning and distributed execution. We show how this scheme can be used in a hierarchical manner, and in contexts where planning is performed in parallel with plan execution. We finally illustrate it through an implemented system which allows a fleet of more than ten autonomous mobile robots to perform load transfer tasks in a route network environment with a very limited centralized activity and important gains in system flexibility and robustness to execution contingencies.