Intelligent Autonomous System Laboratory (IAS-Lab)

University of Padua, Italy

1st EURON Summer School on

Perception and Sensor Fusion in Mobile Robotics
A Series of Lectures on:
Distributed Sensing and Cooperative Planning
for Multi-robot Systems

by
Enrico Pagello
President of the International
Intelligent Autonomous Systems Society
(IAS-Society)

Introduction to the Lectures

 Motivation of our research work

• If we consider as a New application area:

Introducing robots in people’s ordinary life
we need to deal with Multi-robot Systems (MRS)
• But moving from a single-robot theory_and_practice
to a multi-robot science_and_technology requires:
• Developing a cooperative distributed vision system
• Designing distributed real-time software tools
• Balancing social deliberation and reactivity
• Using emergent behaviors
• Understanding better what collective behaviors are
 Distributed Vision Systems (DVS)

• What is a DVS?
• a set of vision systems
embedded in the
environment and
connected by a network

• Which are the DVS tasks?

• Real time wide area safety
surveillance
• Home assistance for young
and old people
From a Matsuyama’s slide
 Integrating Vision Agents on a Robot

Goal: from simple tasks to cooperative tasks!

• Cooperative tasks for Multi-robot Systems require powerful
omnidirectional specialized sensors
• Introducing the concept of an Omnidirectional Vision Agent
• Enhancing Image-based Localisation approach
• Integrating a Monte Carlo Localisation method
• Introducing learning methods for calibration
• Sharing and distributing sensor information through the net
• Developing an Omnidirectional Distributed Vision System
 Introducing an Emergent Behavior Engineering

• Traditional AI failed for real-time systems, but offers

explanation and allows control
• Pure reactivity systems allows using real-robots in real-
world, but only for simple tasks. Hybrid systems are
needed
• Using Stigmergy to make emerging collective behaviors
• Stigmergy = observing other’s work
• Two robots interact through a perceptual flow,
so that the action of the former affects the behavior of the
latter
• A Role Assignement schema is a basic mechanism to
make emerging a collective behavior inside a MRS
 First Lecture, Sept 1, 2005 - A Monte-Carlo Localization
Method applied to a Omnidirectional-Vision Range Finder

We start our series of Lectures by considering the

localization problem for mobile robots, a basic problem for
developing autonomous MRS.

We discuss the Monte-Carlo Localization (MCL) approach,

a probabilistic method, in which the current location of the
robot is modelled as a posterior distribution on the sensor
data represented by a set of weighted particles.

We use an omnidirectional vision sensor as a range finder

(like a laser or a sonar) sensitive to colors transitions to
detect the nearest obstacles.

E. Menegatti, A. Pretto, and E. Pagello Testing omnidirectional

vision-based Monte-Carlo Localization under occlusion. Proc. of
IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS-
2004), September 2004, Sendai, Japan
- A revised version is to appear on IEEE/Trans on Robotics,
Summer 2006
 Second Lecture, Sept 2, 2005 - First part: Using the Fast Fourier
Transform in an Omnidirectional Distributed Vision System

We discuss two issues in the area of processing sensor

information problems. First, we present a way to merge an
image-based localisation approach with the MCL.

In an image-based approach, the robot tries to match the

current view of the environment with the reference views
stored in its the visual memory to calculate its position.

In MCL, the posterior probability density of the robot’s

pose is represented with a set of weighted samples.

Our method combines the advantages of both, overcoming

their limitations when used separately. To work in in
environments with spatial periodicity (perceptual aliasing).
we avoid to use a metrical map. We exploits the properties
of the Fourier Transform of the omnidirectional images,
and uses the similarity between images to weights the
samples.

E. Menegatti, M. Zoccarato, E. Pagello and H. Ishiguro. Image-

Based Monte-Carlo Localisation with Omnidirectional Images.
Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Vol. 48, No. 1 , 2004
 An Application: Using the Image-Based Localisation
in a higly dynamic environment

As an application, we can consider the problem that

traditional image-based localization methods do not
work when the robot is moving in an environment
whose appearance is changing in time.

Thus, we may propose a new approach that enables

the system to work also in highly dynamic
environments by using several omnidirectional
cameras installed in the environment and an
omnidirectional camera mounted on a mobile robot.

The localization of the robot is achieved by

comparing the current image grabbed by the robot
with the images grabbed at the same time by the
DVS.

E. Menegatti, G. Gatto, and E. Pagello, Takashi Minato and

Hiroshi Ishiguro Distributed vision system for robot
localisation in indoor environment. ECMR’05 Proceedings,
Ancona, Sept 2005
 Second Lecture, Sept 2, 2005 - Second part. Sharing the Distributed
Knowledge in an Omnidirectional Distributed Vision System

Then, we consider how to cooperatively track and share

the information about moving objects using a multi-robot
team, when every robot of the team is fitted with a
different omnidirectional vision system running at different
frame rates.

The information gathered from every robot is broadcast to

all the other robots and every robot fuses its own sensor
measurements with the information received from the
teammates, building its own “vision of the world”.

The cooperation among the several vision sensors

enhances the capabilities of each single vision sensor
allowing a team of robot to track multiple objects

E. Menegatti, A. Scarpa, D. Massarin, E. Ros, E. Pagello

Omnidirectional Distributed Vision System for a Team of
Heterogeneous Robots. Proc. of IEEE Workshop on Omnidirectional
Vision (Omnivis'03), in conjunction with Computer Vision and
Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2003) Madison, Wisconsin (USA) 2003
 Third Lecture, Sept 1, 2005 - First Part
Stigmergy, Emerging Behaviors, and Hybrid Architectures

We illustrate the Cooperation through Implicit

Communication behavior-based approach used for
developing The University of Padua Simulated Soccer arbiter
Robot Team for RoboCup Simulation League.
The configuration of the environment, namely the
bhv_1
robots' relative positions depending on both the
global task and the game dynamics, provides a s d
source of implicit information about the robots' e r bhv_2
sensor data n i
intention to be involved in collective actions, making s v
them able to cooperate implicitly. o e bhv_3
The soccer-team performance can be tuned by r r
triggering the arbitration module of any single robot
to generate, as many as possible, suitable situations bhv_N
which hint to the team the action of scoring the motor runs

goal. Some macroscopic parameters have been

usefully introduced to evaluate the evolution of the
whole multi-robot software system.

E. Pagello, A. D'Angelo, F. Montesello, F. Garelli, C. Ferrari. Cooperative behaviors in multi-robot systems through
implicit communication. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1999, pp. 65-77

S. Carpin, C. Ferrari, E. Pagello . Map Focus: a way to reconcile reactivity and deliberation in multi-robot systes.
Robotics and Autonomous Systems. 2002, Vol. 41, pp. 245-255
 Third Lecture, Sept 2, 2005 - Second Part
Cooperation Issues for Multi-Agent Systems

Task Allocation Problem is a key issue in the MRS domain. The

scientific community has presented several interesting solutions to
this classical AI planning problem.

Applying it to a team of robots means to switch to a dynamic role

allocation approach. Gerkey and Mataric showed it is similar to task
allocation problem for MRS in order to cooperatively achieve the
goal, where a time-extended role concept replace that of a
transient task.

We discuss also how an hybrid architecture can take advantages

from the interaction between the deliberative part and the reactive
one and viceversa, to make a MRS to exhibit the assigned
cooperative task.

A. D’angelo, E. Menegatti, E. Pagello How a cooperative behaviour can

emerge from a robot team. R. Alami, H. Asama, R. Chatila Eds., Proceedings
of Int. Conf. on Distributed Autonomous Systems (DARS-2004), Toulouse
(Fr), 23-25 June, pp. 71-80
 Aknowledgments

The slides prepared for these lectures have been

written with the collaboration of Dr. Emanuele
Menegatti and Dr. Antonio D’angelo
Thanks for Your Attention!

The Artisti Veneti Team

www.dei.unipd.it/~robocup