Articolo in rivista, 2023, ENG, 10.1109/TCYB.2023.3263380

Optimal Task and Motion Planning and Execution for Multiagent Systems in Dynamic Environments

Marco Faroni; Alessandro Umbrico; Manuel Beschi; Andrea Orlandini; Amedeo Cesta; Nicola Pedrocchi

University of Michigan, CNR; Università degli Studi di Brescia; CNR; CNR; CNR

Combining symbolic and geometric reasoning in multiagent systems is a challenging task that involves planning, scheduling, and synchronization problems. Existing works overlooked the variability of task duration and geometric feasibility intrinsic to these systems because of the interaction between agents and the environment. We propose a combined task and motion planning approach to optimize the sequencing, assignment, and execution of tasks under temporal and spatial variability. The framework relies on decoupling tasks and actions, where an action is one possible geometric realization of a symbolic task. At the task level, timeline-based planning deals with temporal constraints, duration variability, and synergic assignment of tasks. At the action level, online motion planning plans for the actual movements dealing with environmental changes. We demonstrate the approach's effectiveness in a collaborative manufacturing scenario, in which a robotic arm and a human worker shall assemble a mosaic in the shortest time possible. Compared with existing works, our approach applies to a broader range of applications and reduces the execution time of the process.

IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics

Keywords

Task analysis, Planning, Robots, Production, Uncertainty, Robot kinematics, Multi-agent systems

CNR authors

Pedrocchi Nicola, Orlandini Andrea, Beschi Manuel, Umbrico Alessandro, Cesta Amedeo

CNR institutes

ISTC – Istituto di scienze e tecnologie della cognizione, STIIMA – Istituto di Sistemi e Tecnologie Industriali Intelligenti per il Manifatturiero Avanzato