Multi-robot system control using artificial immune system

For the successful deployment of task-achieving multi-robot systems (MRS), the interactions must be coordinated among the robots within the MRS and between the robots and the task environment. There have been a number of impressive experimentally demonstrated coordinated MRS. However it is still of a premature stage for real world applications. This dissertation presents an MRS control scheme using Artificial Immune Systems (AIS). This methodology is firmly grounded in the biological sciences and provides robust performance for the intertwined entities involved in any task-achieving MRS. Based on its formal foundation, it provides a platform to characterize interesting relationships and dependencies among MRS task requirements, individual robot control, capabilities, and the resulting task performance. The work presented in this dissertation is a first of its kind wherein the principles of AIS have been used to model and organize the group behavior of the MRS. This has been presented in the form of a novel algorithm. In addition to the above, generic environments for computer simulation and real experiment have been realized to demonstrate the working of an MRS. These could potentially be used as a test bed to implement other algorithms onto the MRS. The experiment in this research is a bomb disposal task which involves a team of three heterogeneous robots with different sensors and actuators. And the algorithm has been tested practically through computer simulations.