IQ-ASyMTRe: Synthesizing coalition formation and execution for tightly-coupled multirobot tasks

This paper presents the IQ-ASyMTRe architecture, which is aimed to address both coalition formation and execution for tightly-coupled multirobot tasks in a single framework. Many task allocation algorithms have been previously proposed without explicitly enabling the sharing of robot capabilities. Inspired by information invariant theory, ASyMTRe was introduced which enables the sharing of sensory and computational capabilities by allowing information to flow among different robots via communication. However, ASyMTRe does not provide a solution for how a coalition should satisfy sensor constraints introduced by the sharing of capabilities while executing the assigned task. Furthermore, conversions among different information types1 are hardcoded, which limits the flexibility of ASyMTRe. Moreover, relationships between entities (e.g., robots) and information types are not explicitly captured, which may produce infeasible solutions from the start, as the defined information type may not correspond well to the current environment settings. The new architecture introduces a complete definition of information type to guarantee the feasibility of solutions; it also explicitly models information conversions. Inspired by our previous work, IQ-ASyMTRe uses measures of information quality to guide robot coalitions to satisfy sensor constraints (introduced by capability sharing) while executing tasks, thus providing a complete and general solution. We demonstrate the capability of the approach both in simulation and on physical robots to form and execute coalitions that share sensory information to achieve tightly-coupled tasks.