Searching Dynamic Agents with a Team of Mobile Robots 英文参考文献.docVIP

Sensors 2012, 12, 8815-8831; doi:10.3390/s120708815 OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /journal/sensors Article Searching Dynamic Agents with a Team of Mobile Robots Miguel Juli′a *, Arturo Gil and Oscar Reinoso Systems Engineering and Automation Department, Miguel Hernandez University of Elche, Avda. Universidad s/n. Edif. Quorum V, 03202 Elche, Alicante, Spain; E-Mails: arturo.gil@umh.es (A.G.); o.reinoso@umh.es (O.R.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: mjulia@umh.es; Tel.: +34-965-665-2435; Fax: +34-965-665-8979. Received: 9 May 2012; in revised form: 15 June 2012 / Accepted: 20 June 2012 / Published: 27 June 2012 Abstract: This paper presents a new algorithm that allows a team of robots to cooperatively search for a set of moving targets. An estimation of the areas of the environment that are more likely to hold a target agent is obtained using a grid-based Bayesian ?lter. The robot sensor readings and the maximum speed of the moving targets are used in order to update the grid. This representation is used in a search algorithm that commands the robots to those areas that are more likely to present target agents. This algorithm splits the environment in a tree of connected regions using dynamic programming. This tree is used in order to decide the destination for each robot in a coordinated manner. The algorithm has been successfully tested in known and unknown environments showing the validity of the approach. Keywords: dynamic agent search; grid-based Bayesian ?ltering; search algorithm; multi-robot systems 1. Introduction This paper investigates the search problem in which a team of agents (the searchers) collectively try to ?nd another set of moving agents (dynamic targets). The interest in this particular problem stems from the fact that, in the last years, a great number of applications have emerged in which it is necessary to deploy search tasks in unstructured environments. For example, search and rescue tasks,