Programming large-scale multi-robot system with timing constraints

Abstract

Recently years, research in multi-robot systems has attracted increasingly attentions. One important research topic is to design programming models that can facilitate the developers to programme large-scale multi-robot systems. However, existing works fail to manage the robots to perform tasks with real-time requirements. To address this issue, we propose a new programming model called RMR (Real-time Multi-Robot). RMR is a logic programming model with real-time support. On the basis of the logic programming paradigm, RMR allows the code for multi-robot system to be written from a global perspective, rather than managing a large collection of independent robots. Moreover, RMR allows developers to set timing constraints on the behaviors of an ensemble of robots, which is not implemented by state of the art. After designing RMR, we further develop a compiler and a runtime system for distributed execution of RMR programs. To evaluate the performance of RMR, we deploy it in a simulator and a test-bed, and then demonstrate RMR based on several applications. Our results indicate that RMR greatly facilitates implementing correct collaborative multi-robot applications.