Cooperative Robots to Observe Moving Targets: Review.

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Control Systems
• Artificial Intelligence

Background:

• Multirobot systems enhance task performance, efficiency, and robustness.
• Observing multiple moving targets presents significant coordination challenges for robots.
• Existing research often lacks systematic reviews of cooperative control techniques for this specific problem.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and classify control techniques for cooperative mobile robots monitoring multiple moving targets.
• To provide a comprehensive analysis of existing methods for multirobot target observation.
• To identify key elements influencing the effectiveness of these control strategies.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature review of control techniques for cooperative multirobot observation.
• Classification of techniques into categories: multirobot observation, search/acquisition/track, tracking, and pursuit-evasion.
• Analysis of techniques based on five key elements: coordination method, environment, target, robot, and sensor.

Main Results:

• The review categorizes and critically discusses various control techniques for cooperative multirobot observation of multiple moving targets.
• Five major elements characterizing the problem were identified and used for systematic analysis.
• The majority of reviewed studies rely on simulations and lab experiments, highlighting a gap in real-world validation.

Conclusions:

• This work provides the first systematic review of cooperative multirobot control for monitoring multiple moving targets.
• The proposed classification framework is valuable for analyzing existing techniques and guiding future research.
• Further research is needed to bridge the gap between simulated/laboratory findings and real-world operational conditions.