Muhammad T. Khan and Clarence W. de Silva
Artificial immune system, robot coordination, fault tolerance, idiotypic network theory, multi-robot cooperation
The human immune system is a network of cells, tissues, and other organs that defend the body against foreign invaders called antigens. Jerne’s idiotypic network theory concerns how an antibody in the immune system stimulates or suppresses another antibody and recognizes an antigen. Based on the principles of human immune system and Jerne’s idiotypic network theory this paper presents a method for cooperation among robots in a multi-robot system. The developed cooperative multi-robot system is fully autonomous and distributed. The system autonomously chooses the appropriate number of suitable and most capable robots in the fleet to cooperate with each other in carrying out a global task, while accommodating partial or full failure of robots during the task execution. In the present system, the strategies of communication, coordination, and cooperation use a modified model of Jerne’s idiotypic network theory and the structure of a human immune system. The developed methodology is demonstrated by implementing in a team of simulated heterogeneous mobile robots that cooperatively transport multiple objects to a goal location.
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