Coordination and Cooperation Mechanisms of the Distributed Robotic Systems

The success of robotics and artificial intelligence over the past decades led to increased interest in theoretical research and practical application of distributed robotic systems. The advantages of robots are improvement of reliability, reduction of time and cost of resolving such problems as reconnaissance, surveillance, search and rescue missions, patrolling, etc. At the same time, collective use of robots requires solving a number of specific problems arising in collective management, including distribution and redistribution of tasks, coordination, cooperation and collective decision-making. This article provides an overview of existing methods, algorithms and principles of robotic system coordination and cooperation, known from the theory of multi-agent systems, swarm intelligence and evolutionary modeling. It is established that most of them only partially solve the problem of coordination and cooperation of distributed robotic systems under real-life conditions. The paper defines basic methods of solving tasks and problems of coordination and cooperation of distributed robotic systems under conditions of incomplete a priori information, changes in operational environment, goals and objectives.