Educational Research Complex for Improvement of the Algorithms and Methods of the Robot Group Control Based on LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 Kit

Abstract

In today's robotics, an increasing attention is devoted to Multi-Agent Robotic Systems (MARS), which allow us to accomplish a wide range of tasks with high efficiency due to distribution of the tasks among several agents. The present paper is concerned with the development of an educational research complex intended to improve the algorithms and methods of robot group control at the Chair of Management Problems of the Moscow State University of Computer Science, Radio Engineering and Electronics (MIREA). As a result of an analytical review of the possible approaches to the development of the educational research complex within the framework of the present project, it was suggested to use Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 kit in order to save time and financial resources. Despite the simplicity of the structure due to the scantiness of the Lego set of the basic elements, the developed robot, however, provides the minimum of the necessary functional possibilities for solving of different tasks to work out the methods and algorithms of the robot group control. Planning of the appropriate actions and behavior of the robots is based on the technology of the frame-based structures for providing models (scenarios) of the typical behavior and the subsequent selection of a particular model, depending on the situation. Determination of the agents' current location and their orientation is carried out by an external vision system based on the optical character recognition (optical glyphs) technology. For the wireless data exchange between the control centre and the agents, Bluetooth technology of data transmission is used. The planning and distribution of tasks by the control centre of the MARS is realized in the form of software written in C#. The man-machine interface developed within the present research has all the necessary modules allowing us to realize the problem statement and to efficiently control its implementation. As an application example, we consider the task of building block constructions. The construction blocks are represented by cubes of different colours to be installed in a given sequence, corresponding to the construction process. The results of the experiments fulfilled in order to test our hypotheses and construction principles of the MARS are presented.