In: Control Engineering Practice, Vol. 2, No. 3, pages 337-346. 1995.
Abstract: To analyze a multiple-robot system, several interconnection methods are presented in terms of the processor-based architecture. The concepts of the multiple-processor system, and the multiple-computer system are used to formulate and analyze the multi-robot interconnection system (MRIS). A comparative performance study is presented for four kinds of models of the MRIS. Performance evaluation is then achieved for the MRIS through queueing analysis and Petri net models, especially for the response time and the probability of service failure under different workloads. To verify the significance of the proposed analytic method, a computer simulation is carried out with some design issues for the MRIS. The results, together with some comments, suggest a useful guideline for selecting an appropriate interconnection method for multi-robot systems, subject to the system environment and application.
Keywords: Petri nets, industrial robot, interconnection methods, performance bounds, performance evaluation, queueing models.