Distributed control and coordination of autonomous agents in a dynamic, reconfigurable system
US6636781B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | May 22, 2002 |
| Grant date | Oct 21, 2003 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 22, 2022 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L41/0816
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Systems and techniques are described for distributed control and coordination of autonomous agents in a system. A protocol for distributed control allows autonomous agents to negotiate a group task for the agents, such as locomotion or self-reconfiguration in a robot application, and to synchronize individual agent actions to effect the group task. A protocol for adaptive communication allows autonomous agents, such as physically coupled self-sufficient robot modules, to continuously discover changes in their local topology. In general, in one implementation, the technique includes: discovering a local topology, which includes a type of a communication connection to autonomous agents in the reconfigurable network topology, and determining an action based upon a received control message and the determined local topology.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.