Patent ID: 11890761
Assignee: UNIVERSITÉ DE REIMS CHAMPAGNE-ARDENNE
Field: Handling (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  H  G | IPC B

Claim 18:
19. A method for managing the cooperation between a plurality of robots, each robot of the plurality of robots comprising at least:

a monitor-control unit, the monitor-control unit comprising at least one processor and at least one memory module;
at least one peripheral equipment, the at least one peripheral equipment comprising an actuator or a sensor;
at least one communication equipment connected to at least one communication network;
a first program, configured to pilot the at least one communication equipment, and comprising a plurality of first software modules executed on the at least one processor;
a second program, comprising a plurality of second software modules executed on the at least one processor, a configuration of the second program being determined by a setup file including a field typ_service indicating a sending mode amongst an interpret or a direct mode, the sending mode characterizing messages transmitted by the second program;
a third program, configured to control the actuator and/or the sensor, and comprising a plurality of third software modules executed on the at least one processor;

the method comprising the following steps:
emission by an application layer hosted by a server or accessible through the Internet, of a mission file, the mission file comprising a list of planned elementary tasks and the sequencing thereof, and of an identification and prioritization file of the at least one peripheral equipment,
reception of the mission file and of the identification and prioritization file, by an equipment service of the first program of each robot of the plurality of robots,
transmission, by the first program of each robot of the plurality of robots, of a first query-type message to its second program, to determine an identifier of each available peripheral equipment of the at least one peripheral equipment of each robot of the plurality of robots,

implementation, by the second program of each robot of the plurality of robots, after reception by the second program of a first message originating from the third program:
conversion of the first message into a second message, the second message being formatted according to a predefined object structure comprising a field typ_msg indicating a type of the message amongst the types: command, query, or information;
transmission of the second message to at least one program amongst: a first program belonging to the same robot, a second program of another robot;

the method further comprising the following steps, implemented by the second program within each robot of the plurality of robots, after reception by the second program of a third message, formatted according to the predefined object structure, originating from at least one program amongst: a first program belonging to the same robot, a second program of another robot, when the field typ_msg of the third message indicates a command type or a query type:
translation of the third message into a program portion adapted to be implemented by the third program when a field typ_service of the setup file which is associated to the third message indicates the direct sending mode; and/or
transmission according to a second transport protocol, of at least one portion of the third message, or of the program portion, to the third program, and implementation by the second program of each robot of the plurality of robots to request from the third program and transmit to the first program the identifier of the at least one peripheral equipment available on each robot of the plurality of robots;
processing by the equipment service of the first program of each robot of the plurality of robots of the identifier of the at least one peripheral equipment available on each robot of the plurality of robots to generate a list of tasks feasible by each robot of the plurality of robots,
transmission to each robot of the plurality of robots and/or to a centralized service of the server, by each negotiation/election service of the first program of the list of the tasks feasible by each robot of the plurality of robots,
production by the centralized service of the server and/or following a process of communication between a negotiation/election service of each robot of the plurality of robots, based on the identification and prioritization file of the at least one peripheral equipment available on each robot of the plurality of robots and on the list of tasks feasible by each robot of the plurality of robots, of a list of robots of the plurality of robots participating in the mission file,
execution of the mission file,
synchronization of the robots of the plurality of robots,
supervision of the execution of the mission file.