Abstract
Realizing long-term autonomous missions involving teams of heterogeneous robots is a challenge. It requires mechanisms to make robots react to disturbances or failures that will arise during the mission, while trying to successfully achieve the mission in cooperation. This paper presents HiDDeN, a distributed deliberative architecture that manages the execution of a hierarchical plan. This plan has initially been computed offline, ensuring some military operational constraints of the mission. Each robot’s supervisor then executes its own part of the plan, and reacts to failures using a hierarchical repair approach. This hierarchical repair has been designed with the sake of ensuring operational constraints, while reducing the need of communication between robots, as communication may be intermittent or even nonexistent when the robots operate in completely separate environments. HiDDeN’s robustness and scalability is evaluated with simulations. Experiments with an autonomous helicopter and an autonomous underwater vehicle have been realized and are presented as the defining point of our contribution.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Alami, R., Chatila, R., Fleury, S., Ghallab, M., & Ingrand, F. (1998). An architecture for autonomy. International Journal of Robotics Research, Special Issue on Integrated Architectures for Robot Control and Programming (IJRR), 17(4), 315–337.
Antonelli, A.M.G., Aguiar, A.P., & Pascoal, A. (2012). A new approach to multi-robot harbour patrolling: theory and experiments. In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Vilamoura, Portugal
Atay, N., & Bayazit, O. (2007). Emergent task allocation for mobile robots. In International sympositum on robotics: Science and systems (RSS), Atlanta, GA, USA
Barbier, M., Barrouil, C., Gabard, J.F., & Zanon, G. (2006). ProCoSA: a Petri net based software package for autonomous system supervision. In International conference on application and theory of petri nets and other models of concurrency (ATPN), Turku, Finland
Barbier, M., Cao, H., Lacroix, S., Lesire, C., Teichteil-Königsbuch, F., & Tessier, C. (2009). Decision issues for multiple heterogeneous vehicles in uncertain environments. In National conference on control architectures of robots (CAR), Toulouse, France
Barbier, M., Gabard, J. F., Bertholom, A., & Dupas, Y. (2011). An onboard software decisional architecture for Rapid Environmental Assessment missions. In IFAC world congress, Milan, Italy
Belbachir, A., Ingrand, F., & Lacroix, S. (2012). A cooperative architecture for target localization using multiple AUVs. Intelligent service robotics (Vol. 5(2)).
Benjamin, M. R., Schmidt, H., Newman, P. M., & Leonard, J. J. (2010). Nested autnomy for unmanned marine vehicles with MOOS-IvP. Journal of Field Robotics (JFR), 27(6), 834–875.
Brinon-Arranz, L., Pascoal, A., & Aguiar, P. (2014) Adaptive leader-follower formation control of autonomous marine vehicles. In IEEE conference on decision and control, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Chaimowicz, L., Sugar, T., Kumar, V., & Campos, M. (2001). An architecture for tightly coupled multi-robot cooperation. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Seoul, Korea
Chanel, C.C., Teichteil-Königsbuch, F., & Lesire, C. (2013). Multi-target detection and recognition by UAVs Using Online POMDPs. In AAAI conference on artificial intelligence (AAAI), Bellevue, WA, USA.
Chatzichristofis, S., Kapoutsis, A., Kosmatopoulos, E. B., Doitsidis, L., Rovas, D., & Borges de Sousa, J. (2012). The NOPTILUS project: Autonomous multi-AUV navigation for exploration of unknown environments. In IFAC workshop on navigation, guidance and control of underwater vehicles (NGCUV), Porto, Portugal
Das, J., Harvey, J., Py, F., Vathsangam, H., Graham, R., Rajan, K., & Sukhatme, G.S. (2013). Hierarchical probabilistic regression for AUV-based adaptative sampling of marine phenomena. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany
De Cubber, G., Doroftei, D., Baudoin, Y., Serrano, D., Chintamani, K., Sabino, R., & Ourevitch, S. (2012). ICARUS: An EU-FP7 project Providing Unmanned Search and Rescue Tools. In IROS workshop on robots and sensors integration in future rescue INformation system (ROSIN), Vilamoura-Algarve, Portugal
Echeverria, G., Lemaignan, S., Degroote, A., Lacroix, S., Karg, M., Koch, P., Lesire, C., & Stinckwich, S. (2012) Simulating complex robotic scenarios with morse. In International conference on simulation, modeling, and programming for autonomous robots (SIMPAR), Tsukuba, Japan
Erol, K., Hendler, J., & Nau, D. (1994). HTN planning: complexity and expressivity. In AAAI conference on artificial intelligence (AAAI), Seattle, WA, USA
Fazil Ayan, N., Kuter, U., Yaman, F., & Goldman, R. (2007). HOTRiDE: hierarchical ordered task replanning in dynamic environments. In International conference on automated planning and scheduling (ICAPS), Providence, RI, USA
Ferri, G., & Djapic, V. (2013). Adaptive mission planning for cooperative autonomous maritime vehicles. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany
Gancet, J., Hattenberger, G., Alami, R., & Lacroix, S. (2005). Task Planning and control for a multi-AUV system: architecture and algorithms. In International conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), Edmonton, AB, Canada
Gateau, T., Lesire, C., & Barbier, M. (2012). Knowledge base for planning, execution and plan repair. In International conference on automated planning and scheduling (ICAPS) workshop on planning and execution (PlanEx), Altibaia, Brasil
Gateau, T., Lesire, C., & Barbier, M. (2013). HiDDeN: Cooperative plan execution and repair for heterogeneous robots in dynamic environments. In International conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), Tokyo, Japan
Hollinger, G.A., Englot, B., Hover, F., Mitra, U., & Sukhatme, G.S. (2012). Uncertainty-driven view planning for underwater inspection. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Saint-Paul, MN, USA
Kurowski, M., Korte, H., & Lampe, B.P. (2012). Search-and-rescue-operation with an autonomously acting rescue boat. In International conference on autonomous and intelligent systems, Aveiro, Portugal
Luzeaux, D., & Dalgalarrondo, A. (2001). HARPIC, an Hybrid Architecture Based on Representations, Perception, and Intelligent Control: A Way to Provide Autonomy to Robots. In The international conference on computational science (ICCS), London, UK
Marques, E., Ribeiro, M., Pinto, J., Sousa, J., & Martins, F. (2015). Towards programmable coordination of unmanned vehicle networks. In IFAC workshop on navigation, guidance and control of underwater vehicles (NGCUV), Girona, Spain
McGann, C., Py, F., Rajan, K., Thomas, H., Henthorn, R., & McEwen, R. (2008). A deliberative architecture for AUV control. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Pasadena, CA, USA
Mukhopadhyay, S., Wang, C., Bradshaw, S., Bazie, V., Maxon, S., Hicks, L., Patterson, M., & Zhang, F. (2012). Controller performance of marine robots in reminiscent oil surveys. In International conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), Vilamoura, Portugal
Muscettola, N., Dorais, G., Fry, C., Levinson, R., & Plaunt, C. (2002). IDEA: Planning at the core of autonomous reactive agents. In International NASA workshop on planning and scheduling for space, Houston, TX, USA
Nau, D., Au, T. C., Ilhami, O., Kuter, U., Murdock, W., Wu, D., et al. (2003). SHOP2: an HTN planning system. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR), 20, 379–404.
Paolucci, M., Shehory, O., & Sycara, K. (2000). Interleaving planning and execution in a multiagent team planning environment. Linköping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Sciences, 5(18),
Parker, L. (1998). ALLIANCE: An Architecture for Fault Tolerant Multi-Robot Cooperation. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 14, 220–240.
Parker, L., Kannan, B., Tang, F., & Bailey, M. (2004). Tightly-coupled navigation assistance in heterogeneous multi-robot teams. In International conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), Sendai, Japan
Pinto, J., Dias, P., Martins, R., Fortuna, J., Marques, E., & Sousa, J. (2013a). The LSTS toolchain for networked vehicle systems. In OCEANS, San Diego, CA, USA
Pinto, J., Faria, M., Fortuna, J., Martins, R., Sousa, J., Queiroz, N., et al. (2013b). Chasing fish: Tracking and control in a autonomous multi-vehicle real-world experiment. In OCEANS, San Diego, CA, USA
Rooker, M., & Birk, A. (2007). Multi-robot exploration under the constraints of wireless networking. Control Engineering Practice, 15(4), 435–445.
Schneider, T., & Schmidt, H. (2010). Unified command and control for heterogeneous marine sensor networks. Journal of Field Robotics (JFR), 27(6), 876–889.
Shkuri, F., Xu, A., Meghjani, M., Higuera, J.C.G., Girdhar, Y., Gigure, P., Dey, B.B., Li, J., Kalmbach, A., Prahacs, C., Turgeon, K., Rekleitis, I., & Dudek, G. (2012). Multi-domain monitoring of marine environments using a heterogeneous robot team. In International conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), Vilamoura, Portugal
Smith, R. (1980). The Contract Net Protocol: high-level communication and control in a distributed problem solver. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 29, 12.
Soetens, P., & Bruyninckx, H. (2005). Realtime Hybrid Task-Based Control for Robots and Machine Tools. In International conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Barcelona, Spain
Sotzing, C., Johnson, N., & Lane, D. (2008). Improving multi-AUV coordination with hierarchical blackboard-based plan representation. In Workshop of the UK planning and scheduling special interest group (PlanSIG), Edinburgh, UK
Vidal, R., Shakernia, O., Kim, H., Shim, D., & Sastry, S. (2002). Probabilistic pursuit-evasion games: Theory, implementation and experimental evaluation. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 18, 662–669.
Watanabe, Y., Lesire, C., Piquereau, A., Fabiani, P., Sanfourche, M., & Le Besnerais, G. (2010). The Onera ReSSAC unmanned autonomous helicopter: Visual air-to-ground target tracking in an urban environment. In AHS Forum, Phoenix, AZ, USA
Xiang, X., Jouvencel, B., & Parodi, O. (2010). Coordinated formation control of multiple autnomous underwater vehicles for pipeline inspection. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR), 7(1), 75–84.
Zhang, Y., & Parker, L.E (2010). IQ-ASyMTRe: Synthesizing coalition formation and execution for tightly-coupled multirobot tasks with sensor constraints. In International conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), Taipei, Taiwan
Acknowledgments
The authors thanks the French Defense procurement agency DGA for the funding of the ACTION project and for their strong involvement in the air-sea scenarios with developments and implementation on Daurade AUV and Spartan USV and for provision of the test site.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lesire, C., Infantes, G., Gateau, T. et al. A distributed architecture for supervision of autonomous multi-robot missions. Auton Robot 40, 1343–1362 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-016-9603-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-016-9603-z