GOAL DELIBERATION AND PLANNING IN COOPERATIVE MULTI-ROBOT SYSTEMS

Intelligent robots are rational agents. The rationality of robots working cooperatively is significantly different from robots working independently. Cooperation between intelligent robots requires the high level of reasoning and complex interactions for successful operations. The required reasoning process includes knowledge representation and sharing as well as the ability to understand the context of a situation. The reasoning process heavily influences on the planning of deciding what actions need to be taken. Goal deliberation and planning is the process that deals with those requirements. This dissertation investigates the problem of goal deliberation and planning to enable such cooperation between goal-oriented intelligent robots, working as a team. The dissertation then proposes a multi-robot system model that embraces results of the investigation. The proposed model is realized on the top of the platform ‘robot operating system’ (ROS). The implemented system, named ‘goal-oriented multi agent systems’ (GOMAS), is demonstrated with the computer game, StarCraft II. Units in StarCraft II are individually controlled by the GOMAS robots and work cooperatively to attain a set of goals given from operators. The demonstration with the three different scenarios validates that the GOMAS system successfully and efficiently deliberates and plans the given goals.