Method, computer program and system for controlling a plurality of robots, and computer-readable storage medium

• US 10,486,305 B2
• Filed: 09/14/2017
• Issued: 11/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/01/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Original Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
• Inventors: Buerger, Mathias, Schillinger, Philipp Christian
• Primary Examiner(s): Holwerda, Stephen
• Application Number:
  US15/704,782
• Publication Number:
  US 20190070725A1
• Time in Patent Office: 803 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/0084 comprising a plurality of manipulators
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/0426 Programming the control sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/02 Control of position or course in two dimensions
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/008 based on physical entities controlled by simulated intelligence so as to replicate intelligent life forms, e.g. based on robots replicating pets or humans in their appearance or behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/046 Forward inferencing; Production systems
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 901/30 End effector
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 901/50 Miscellaneous

Abstract

A method for controlling a plurality of agents to complete a mission, including deriving a decomposition set of decomposition states in a set of possible states of an automaton, wherein the automaton characterizes the mission, deriving a sequence of actions to be carried out by the plurality of agents depending on the decomposition set, where each action is to be carried out by at most one of the plurality of agents.

Claims

1. A method for controlling a plurality of agents to complete a mission, comprising:

deriving a decomposition set of decomposition states in a set of possible states of an automaton, wherein the automaton represents a specification of the mission including all tasks of the mission, the automaton being defined by a tuple including;

(i) the set of possible states, (ii) a set of initial states, the set of initial states being a subset of the set of possible states, (iii) a set of Boolean formulas over a set of atomic propositions, (iv) transition conditions, and (v) a set of accepting states, the set of accepting states being a subset of the set of possible states;

deriving a sequence of actions to be carried out by the plurality of agents depending on the decomposition set, where each of the actions is to be carried out by at most one of the plurality of agents; and

providing a control signal for controlling the plurality of agents in accordance with the derived sequence of actions.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

controlling the plurality of agents in accordance with the derived sequence of actions.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

generating the decomposition set by exploring an essential sequence of an accepting run through one or more candidate decomposition states.

4. The method according to claim 3, further comprising:

adding the one or more candidate decomposition state to the decomposition set depending on whether a complementary sequence to the explored essential sequence around the respective one or more candidate decomposition state is accepting.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein in which the decomposition set includes all those states in the set of possible states of the automaton, for which the complementary sequence to the explored essential sequence around the respective state is accepting.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

generating a team model based on the automaton that represents a specification of the mission and based on automata that each model the capabilities of one of the plurality of agents.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the team model comprises a set of actions that comprises switch transitions which change the acting agent from one of the plurality of agents to another one of the plurality of agents.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the switch transitions are configured to each change the acting agent from one of the plurality of agents to a next one of the plurality of agents.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the switch transitions are configured such as to act only if the automaton that characterizes the mission is in a decomposition state.

10. The method according to claim 6, further comprising:

deriving the sequence of actions to be carried out by the plurality of agents by a label-setting algorithm in which each state of a set of states of the team model is associated with labels that are characterized by a sequence of action leading to the respective state.

11. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:

constructing a reachable set of temporary labels for each state and a set of permanent labels.

12. The method according to claim 11, further comprising:

constructing, for each selected label, a set of consecutive labels by extending an action sequence associated with the selected label by all available actions and adding the resulting labels to the reachable set of temporary labels.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein each label comprises at least one component that characterizes a cost under the corresponding sequence of actions.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the derived sequence of actions to be carried out by the plurality of agents is the one out of all actions that satisfy a characterization of the mission that minimizes a team cost which depends on the component that characterizes the cost.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein only actions resulting in Pareto-optimal labels at their target state are added to the reachable set of temporary labels.

16. The method according to claim 13, wherein the component that characterizes the cost under the corresponding sequence of actions is depending on costs associated with each of these actions with one component each for each one of the agents.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the component that characterizes the cost under the corresponding sequence of actions is stored in memory by way of a data structure that comprises at least one component that characterizes costs associated with a selected one of the agents and at least one component that characterizes the costs associated with a group of agents that precede the selected one of the agents.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein each label comprises at least one component that characterizes a resource status at the respective state under the corresponding sequence of actions.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the characterization of the mission comprises an inequality constraint that restricts the at least one component that characterizes a resource status to a predefined region.

20. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium on which is stored a computer program for controlling a plurality of agents to complete a mission, the computer program, when executed by a computer, causing the computer to perform:

deriving a decomposition set of decomposition states in a set of possible states of an automaton, wherein the automaton represents a specification of the mission including all tasks of the mission, the automaton being defined by a tuple including;

(i) the set of possible states, (ii) a set of initial states, the set of initial states being a subset of the set of the possible states, (iii) a set of Boolean formulas over a set of atomic propositions, (iv) transition conditions, and (v) a set of accepting states, the set of accepting states being a subset of the set of possible states;

deriving a sequence of actions to be carried out by the plurality of agents depending on the decomposition set, where each of the actions is to be carried out by at most one of the plurality of agents; and

controlling the plurality of agents in accordance with the derived sequence of actions.

21. A system for controlling a plurality of agents to complete a mission, which is configured to:

derive a decomposition set of decomposition states in a set of possible states of an automaton, wherein the automaton represents a specification of the mission including all tasks of the mission, the automaton being defined by a tuple including;

(i) the set of possible states, (ii) a set of initial states, the set of initial states being a subset of the set of possible states, (iii) a set of Boolean formulas over a set of atomic propositions, (iv) transition conditions, and (v) a set of accepting states, the set of accepting states being a subset of the set of possible states;

derive a sequence of actions to be carried out by the plurality of agents depending on the decomposition set, where each of the actions is to be carried out by at most one of the plurality of agents; and

control the plurality of agents in accordance with the derived sequence of actions.

22. The system according to claim 21, further comprising at least one of the plurality of agents.