Rules of the task

The task that was studied is this:
  • There's some objects (boxes of wood) that are placed into one delimited area
  • This objects will be placed into one goal delimited area
  • It's no important the order with which they arrive in the goal area
  • We use some mobile robots to performes the task
  • These robots must not exchange information in an explicit way during the task
  • All the robots use a behavior-based planner
To have implicit communication between the robots, it's necessary to use a shared element so that, from the interactions of each robot with the element, it's possible to extract useful information for the task.
The shared element used is a rigid bar, becouse:
  • It's an excellent shared element, infact:
    • The robots must be placed along the bar
    • The task become easier becose, for complete it, it's necessary that the bar goes from an initial position, mail to the outside of the area in which there are the objects, until to a final position mail to the inside of the area in which the objects must arrive: the passage of the bar in the zone of the objects will push them in the zone of arrival.
  • There are many examples of  task effected from people with shared objects (like the bar) that they could be studied for understand that type of useful information could be extracted.
    • Push a car, carry or push a trunk of a tree, use a bar for push a heavy object, etc., they are examples of tasks that could take place without exchange of information, since they are of daily experience.
    • If we build a robot from which it's possible to extract comparable information to that which the people use in those assignments, then we will be able to use a similar behavior-based strategy. 

 
 
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