In this work, we present a novel method for automating persistent surveillance missions involving multiple vehicles. Automata-based techniques were used to generate collision-free motion plans for a team of vehicles to satisfy a temporal logic specification. Vector fields were created for use with a differential flatness-based controller, allowing vehicle flight and deployment to be fully automated according to the motion plans. The use of charging platforms with the vehicles allows for truly persistent missions. Experiments were performed with two quadrotors over 50 runs to validate the theoretical results.
This paper presents a new computational paradigm which can be successfully applied in robotics for the control of autonomous mobile robots. Membrane computing is a naturally parallel and distributed model of computation inspired by the structure and functioning of living cells. Numerical P systems, a type of membrane systems which operates with numerical values, and the extension, enzymatic numerical P systems, were used for modeling robot behaviors. Current results and developments of this innovative approach are also discussed and analyzed.
