Task and Motion Coordination for Heterogeneous Multiagent Systems With Loosely Coupled Local Tasks

Abstract

We consider a multiagent system that consists of heterogeneous groups of homogeneous agents. Instead of defining a global task for the whole team, each agent is assigned a local task as syntactically cosafe linear temporal logic formulas that specify both motion and action requirements. Interagent dependence is introduced by collaborative actions, of which the execution requires multiple agents’ collaboration. To ensure the satisfaction of all local tasks without central coordination, we propose a bottom–up motion and task coordination strategy that contains an off-line initial plan synthesis and an online coordination scheme based on real-time exchange of request and reply messages. It facilitates not only the collaboration among heterogeneous agents but also the task swapping between homogeneous agents to reduce the total execution cost. It is distributed as any decision is made locally by each agent based on local computation and communication within neighboring agents. It is scalable and resilient to agent failures as the dependence is formed and removed dynamically based on agent capabilities and their plan execution status, instead of preassigned agent identities. The overall scheme is demonstrated by a simulated scenario of 20 agents with loosely coupled local tasks.