Cooperative Object Transportation using Gibbs Random Fields

2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

Project maintained by rezeck Hosted on GitHub Pages — Theme by mattgraham

This paper presents a novel methodology that allows a swarm of robots to perform a cooperative transportation task. Our approach consists of modeling the swarm as a Gibbs Random Field (GRF), taking advantage of this framework's locality properties. By setting appropriate potential functions, robots can dynamically navigate, form groups, and perform cooperative transportation in a completely decentralized fashion. Moreover, these behaviors emerge from the local interactions without the need for explicit communication or coordination. To evaluate our methodology, we perform a series of simulations and proof-of-concept experiments in different scenarios. Our results show that the method is scalable, adaptable, and robust to failures and changes in the environment.

Citation

@inproceedings{rezeck2021collective,
  author={Rezeck, Paulo and Assunção, Renato M. and Chaimowicz, Luiz},
  booktitle={2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)}, 
  title={Cooperative Object Transportation using Gibbs Random Fields}, 
  year={2021},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={9131-9138},
  doi={10.1109/IROS51168.2021.9635928}
}

Usage

Prerequisites

Ubuntu 18.04/20.04
ROS Melodic/Noetic
Gazebo 11
HeRo common package

Installation

Option 1: For Docker users

Download this repository (1 of 2):

git clone https://github.com/verlab/grf_colletive_transport.git /
&& cd grf_colletive_transport

Build docker image (2 of 2):

docker-compose build \
&& docker images

REPOSITORY                   TAG               IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE
grf_swarm_tranport           v1.0              f18898a6cb7a   6 days ago      3.89GB

Option 2: System installation

Access your ROS workspace directory (1 of 5):
```
CATKIN_DIR=~/catkin_ws
cd $CATKIN_DIR
```

Install dependecies (2 of 5):

apt-get install -y \
    qt5-default \
    python3-pyqt5 \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-robot-state-publisher \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-usb-cam \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-xacro \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-urdfdom-py \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-rosserial \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-rosserial-server \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-urdf \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-teleop-twist-keyboard \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-rviz \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-gazebo-ros-pkgs \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-gazebo-plugins \
    ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-gazebo-ros-control

Install gazebo_ros (3 of 5):

  cd $CATKIN_DIR/src \
  && git clone https://github.com/ros-simulation/gazebo_ros_pkgs.git \
  && cd gazebo_ros_pkgs \
  && git checkout b0ed38f9ecedbe929340f5e8b0aa7a457248e015 \ #branch before tf_prefix deprecation decision
  && cd $CATKIN_DIR \
  && /bin/bash -c "source /opt/ros/${ROS_DISTRO}/setup.bash && rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y \
  && catkin_make"

Install hero common package (4 of 5):

  cd $CATKIN_DIR/src \
  && git clone --depth 1 --branch noetic-devel https://github.com/verlab/hero_common.git \
  && cd $CATKIN_DIR \
  && /bin/bash -c "source /opt/ros/${ROS_DISTRO}/setup.bash && rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y \
  && catkin_make"

Install this GRF transport package (5 of 5):

cd $CATKIN_DIR/src /
&& git clone https://github.com/verlab/grf_colletive_transport.git /
&& cd $CATKIN_DIR /
&& /bin/bash -c "source /opt/ros/${ROS_DISTRO}/setup.bash && rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y \
  && catkin_make"

Demo

Build docker image:
```
docker compose build
```
Run script:
```
sh docker-launch.sh
```

Execution

First, start Gazebo simulator:

roslaunch hero_gazebo gazebo_bringup.launch

Then, spawn the objects:

roslaunch grf_transport spawn_object.launch

Now, spawn the robots and the environment ( and unpause Gazebo):
```
roslaunch grf_transport spawn_robots.launch
```

Start GRF controller:

roslaunch grf_transport grf_controller.launch

RViz launch (for debug):

roscd grf_transport/config/  \
&& rosrun rviz rviz -d config.rviz

Setup

How change the number of robots?

roslaunch hero_gazebo gazebo_wizard.launch

Also set the number of robots in the grf controller param.yaml file:

# Number of robots in the environment
robots: 30
.
.
.

How to change the object?

Edit the launch spawn_object.launch and select the object you want to spawn:

<!-- Select a object shape: "rectangular_prism, triangular_prism, polygonal_prism" -->
    <arg name="object_shape" default="rectangular_prism" />
    <param name="object_shape" value="$(arg object_shape)" />

Related Publications

Rezeck, P., Azpurua, H., Correa, M. F., & Chaimowicz, L. (2022). Hero 2.0: A low-cost robot for swarm robotics research. arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.12391.
P. Rezeck and L. Chaimowicz, “Chemistry-Inspired Pattern Formation With Robotic Swarms,” in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 9137-9144, Oct. 2022, doi: 10.1109/LRA.2022.3190638.
P. Rezeck, R. M. Assunção and L. Chaimowicz, “Flocking-Segregative Swarming Behaviors using Gibbs Random Fields,” 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Xi’an, China, 2021, pp. 8757-8763, doi: 10.1109/ICRA48506.2021.9561412.