Multi-agent robot systems as distributed autonomous systems

In the numerous existing studies dealing with multi-agent robot systems, the systems are positioned on the crossover area of robotics and distributed autonomous systems. Multi-agent robots perform many tasks, which are classified into six types according to the dimension of the goal state and the number of iterations of the tasks. This paper surveys earlier studies on multi-agent robots for each type, such as multi-robot motion-planning algorithms and exploration algorithms of multiple robots. The tasks that multi-agent robots can perform are becoming increasingly more complex as they move from single, one-time tasks to those involving many iterations. This study is an investigation of the current trends and the potentials for multi-agent robot systems. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.