A modular synthesis approach for the coordination of multi-agent systems: the multiple team case

In this paper, we deal with the problem of coordinating multiple agents to accomplish a global task. This problem consists of a set of agents divided into teams of homogeneous agents that interact with each other in order to autonomously complete a common global task. Due to the fact that agents in a team are exactly the same both in hardware and control software, the open-loop behavior of any agent in a team can be represented by a template, as well as its local control specifications. Our approach is based on the Supervisory Control Theory and it derives sufficient conditions that allow us to synthesize for each team a local supervisor template from templates associated with the team and the global task model in such a way that, when this supervisor template is instantiated for the other agents in the team, the global task can be completed by the coordinated action of all agents in the system. Our sufficient conditions also guarantee that a computed set of supervisor templates does not need to be recomputed or reconfigured whenever agents are added or removed from teams. An example of 3D robotic construction is provided to illustrate our approach.