Vision-based behaviors for multi-robot cooperation

This paper presents some advanced examples of reactive vision-based cooperative behaviors: (1) Chasing and posing against another robot among others, (2) Unblocking the path of another robot by removing an obstacle, (3) Passing an object from one to another. These behaviors are demonstrated using real mobile robots equipped with CCD cameras, in a complex environment, and with no central controller or explicit communication among the robots. The action observation is based on real time processing of optical ow analysis and stereo tracking (ZDF). An extended behavior-based architecture for \cooperation by observation" is presented. The core extension consists of a mobile space bu er and an image space bu er with manipulable markers which control the internal ow of information, thereby coordinating parallel behaviors and achieving purposive tasks in complex and dynamic environments.