A real-time world model for multi-robot teams with high-latency communication

Abstract

In this paper, we present in detail our approach to constructing a world model in a multi-robot team. We introduce two separate world models, namely an individual world model that stores one robot's state, and a shared world model that stores the state of the team. We present procedures to effectively merge information in these two world models in real-time. We overcome the problem of high communication latency by using shared information on an as-needed basis. The success of our world model approach is validated by experimentation in the robot soccer domain. The results show that a team using a world model that incorporates shared information is more successful at tracking a dynamic object in its environment than a team that does not use shared information.