A Bio-Inspired, Distributed Control Approach to the Design of Autonomous Cooperative Behaviors in Multiple Mobile Robot Systems

This chapter deals with the design and implementation of bio-inspired control architectures for intelligent multiple mobile robot systems. Focusing on building control systems, this chapter presents a non-centralized, behavior-based methodology for autonomous cooperative control, inspired by the adaptive and self-organizing capabilities of biological systems, which can generate robust and complex behaviors through limited local interactions. With autonomous behavior modules for discrete event distributed control, a modular, Petri net-based behavioral control software has been implemented in accordance with a hierarchical distributed hardware structure. The behavior modules with respective pre-conditions and post-conditions can be dynamically connected in response to status events from action control modules at the lower level to achieve the specified overall task. The approach involving planning, control, and reactivity can integrate high-level command input with the behavior modules through the distributed autonomous control architecture.