Minefield Mapping Using Cooperative Multirobot Systems

This paper presents a team-theoretic approach to cooperative multirobot systems. The individual actions of the robots are controlled by the Belief-Desire-Intention model to endow the robots with the know-how needed to execute these actions deliberately. The cooperative behaviors between the heterogeneous robots are governed by the Team-Log theory to endow all the robots in the team with the know-how-to-cooperate and determine the team members’ commitments to each other despite their different types, properties, and goals. The proposed approach is tested for validity with the real life problem of minefield mapping. Different minefield sweeping strategies are studied to control the mobility of the mobile sweepers within the minefield in order to maximize the area coverage and improve picture compilation capability of the multirobot system.