Unmanned vehicles on the rise: a review on projects of cooperating robot teams

Abstract Teams consisting of cooperating mobile robots are able to carry out tasks faster and more effectively than individual robots. Previous research projects have focused on teams of homogeneous robots in particular, whereas heterogeneous robots are becoming increasingly important. In this paper, the fundamentals of both homogeneous and heterogeneous robot teams are examined. In this context, not only key fundamentals are distinguished from each other, but also potential applications and advantages of multi-robot systems (MRS) are shown. The rapid development of autonomous MRS is shown by means of exemplarily selected research projects, whereby the individual approaches of these projects are systematically compared and evaluated. Finally, an outlook on remaining challenges in the field of autonomous heterogeneous MRS is given.