Experiments on Human-in-the-Loop Coordination for Multirobot System With Task Abstraction

This paper presents the experimental validation of a multiple mobile robot system with human-in-the-loop coordination. It has been proposed that the control framework for networked autonomous robots can be augmented by artificial functions for task abstraction, so that a human operator is able to operate a group of robots remotely. By utilizing the redundancy of a multirobot system with task-space control, the group of mobile robots, in addition to achieving the missions tele-controlled by the human, can perform added tasks simultaneously. In this paper, the human-robot cooperative control system was validated experimentally through a robotic manipulator and a group of mobile robots by taking into account communication delays. Multirobot coverage control, formation control, and cooperative transportation were demonstrated, to validate the performance and efficiency of the robotic control system with human-in-the-loop coordination.