Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10626-023-00383-x

Multi-level control for multiple mobile robot systems

Elzbieta Roszkowska1 · Piotr Makowski-Czerski2 · Lukasz Janiec1

Received: 22 March 2023 / Accepted: 10 August 2023 / Published online: 18 October 2023
© The Author(s) 2023

Abstract
This paper contributes with a multi-level, hierarchical control system for a fleet of mobile
robots sharing a common 2D motion space. The system consists of three levels, with the
top level being a supervisor based on a discrete representation of the Multiple Mobile Robot
System (MMRS), in which robot motion processes are seen as sequences of stages. The
supervisor controls centrally the changes of their stages by robots, ensuring their collision-,
and deadlock-free concurrent movement. The intermediate control level supervises locally the
execution of robot motion on individual stages in a manner consistent with the decisions of the
top level. The lowest level, robot control, is responsible for motion execution as determined by
the local supervisor. We capitalize on some earlier results concerning the supervisory control
of MMRS and propose a common framework for three supervisory control models. Then
we propose relevant solutions for the local supervisors, in particular, a DES-based robot-
motion-mode control and application of the Artificial Potential Field model for ensuring
collision-free motion of two robots sharing a space sector. Next we assume simple robot
control and subject the system to simulation experiments aimed at comparing the impact of
the different solutions on the performance of MMRS.

Keywords Multiple mobile robot system · Hybrid control · DES-based control ·

Artificial potential field

This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Special Issue on Applications 2022
Guest Editors: Jan Komenda, Tomas Masopust, and Spyros Reveliotis

B Elzbieta Roszkowska
[email protected]
Piotr Makowski-Czerski
[email protected]
Lukasz Janiec
[email protected]
1 Department of Cybernetics and Robotics, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology,
Janiszewskiego 11/17, Wroclaw 50-372, Poland
2 Graduate of Embedded Robotics Program, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 2022,
Wroclaw, Poland

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426 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

1 Introduction

The use of a mobile robot team in place of one robot substantially increases the performance
of many robotic applications, including those related to area searching, search and rescue,
interplanetary exploration, extraction of minerals, agriculture, forestry, or transport. A key
issue in the design of such systems is to coordinate the movement of a number of robots
operating in the same workspace. Regardless of their tasks, the robots must be able to effec-
tively share a common area in order to prevent the mutual disruption of traffic and effectively
pursue their missions.
In the above context, a widely considered problem in robotics has become multiple-
robot motion planning. Planning approaches can be categorized in various ways, with two
categories - centralized and decoupled - that can be distinguished as opposite ends of the
spectrum of solutions. A centralized approach typically constructs a path in a composite
configuration space, which is formed by the Cartesian product of the configuration spaces of
the individual robots, e.g. Barraquand and Latombe (1991). A decoupled approach typically
generates paths for each robot independently, and then considers the interactions between the
robots, e.g. Buckley (1989). The approaches that lie in the middle of the spectrum, e.g. La Valle
and Hutchinson (1998), constrain the robot motions before considering interactions between
robots and assume that they travel on independent networks of paths called road-maps.
In classical robotics, these problems are understood as kinodynamic motion planning
(Donald et al. 1993), that takes into account the robot kinematics, dynamics, and colli-
sion avoidance requirements, and seeks for each robot a trajectory specifying a continuous
sequence of positions, orientations, and speeds while avoiding contact with any stationary
and moving obstacles (other robots). The methodology applied usually combines techniques
from optimal control and mathematical programming. For example, the approach proposed
in Peng and Akella (2004) consists of identifying collision segments along each robot’s path,
and then optimizing the robots velocities along the collision and collision-free segments.
First, for each path segment, for each robot, the minimum and maximum possible traver-
sal times that satisfy the dynamics constraints are computed by solving the corresponding
two-point boundary value problems. The collision avoidance constraints for pairs of robots
can then be combined to formulate two mixed integer linear programming (MILP) models
that provide schedules that are lower and upper bounds on the optimum; the upper bound
schedule is designed to be a continuous velocity schedule.
An interesting concept of multiple mobile robot motion planning that applies constraint-
based techniques is also considered in Pecora et al. (2012); Andreasson et al. (2015). These
papers employ the notion of trajectory envelope, which is a set of spatial and temporal con-
straints on the position of a vehicle’s reference point. An envelope defines a set of alternative
execution patterns that ensure conflict-free robot motion. The approach consists of multi-
ple constraint solvers, which progressively refine trajectory envelopes according to mission
requirements.
Many works assume that robot paths are already given, and focus solely on robot velocity
planning in a way to optimize some system criteria. For example, paper (Soltero et al. 2011)
deals with the problem of persistent monitoring in multi-robot systems, seeking a policy to
calculate the speed of each robot that maximizes the stability margin of a function character-
izing changes in the environment introduced by the robots while ensuring conflict-free robot
motion. The proposed approach to collision and deadlock-avoidance is based on the assump-
tion of temporary stops of robots during their travel and is correct. However, the stopping
policy is based on a condition that is sufficient, but not necessary for no-collisions, which
makes the proposed solution excessively conservative.

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 427

Decoupled approaches to motion planning of multiple mobile robots are typically reactive,
that is, aim to make robots adapt themselves in real time to changes in the environment (Ferrera
et al. 2013, 2017). Robots are often viewed as agents with simple dynamic and kinematic
models. An interesting example of such an approach is considered in Pallottino et al. (2007).
The paper proposes a novel policy for steering multiple vehicles that move with a constant
speed between assigned start and goal configurations, ensuring collision avoidance. This
policy is based on a concept of reserved regions, over which active agents claim exclusive
ownership, and traffic rules that ensure maintaining the interiors of reserved regions disjoint.
The policy is decentralized, as it requires that each agent decides about its own motion by
applying traffic rules based on the locally available information, and scalable, in the sense
that the complexity of the decision algorithms do not increase with the number of agents in
the scenario. A reactive method of motion control is also employed in Ferrera et al. (2013),
where decentralized robot coordination algorithm takes the form of a state machine. Tomlin
et al. (2007) and Lygeros et al. (1998) contribute with hybrid control solutions for aircraft and
highway systems, respectively. The air traffic model is inspired by linear hybrid automata,
with the difference that it allows for a nonlinear continuous dynamic model within each
discrete state and a general discrete transition relation. The methodology of the highway
model synthesis joins techniques from game theory and optimal control. Another common
reactive method makes use of potential fields (Khatib 1986). In this approach, a robot moves
through space as if it is being acted upon by a set of forces. Attractive forces pull the robot
toward a goal destination, while repulsive forces push the robot away from obstacles and/or
other robots. At each point in the configuration space, the robot moves along the vector
representing the combined forces acting on that point in the configuration space.
The main contribution of the above discussed works are methodologies ensuring collision-
free control of robot movement. The resulting algorithms have, however, two major
drawbacks: a) due to high computational complexity, they are not scalable, and b) they
do not give formal guarantees of the correct operation of the system, e.g., in terms of ensur-
ing the completion of the robot missions. The ineffectiveness of these models in providing
the above properties is mainly due to the assumed representation of the robot system, whose
operation is abstracted in continuous time.
A new trend in the robotic motion planning literature is to use formal methods, like model
checking, reactive synthesis and supervisory control theory, to automatically design con-
trollers that drive a mobile robot to accomplish some high level missions in a guaranteed
manner (Lin 2014; Farrell et al. 2018; Kress-Gazit et al. 2018). In robotics, formal synthesis
provides a framework for specifying complex robot tasks in a mathematically precise lan-
guage and automatically transforming these specifications into correct-by-construction robot
controllers. As noted in Kress-Gazit et al. (2018), the process of automating high-level behav-
ior of robots is the major focus of related communities, most notably the artificial intelligence
(AI) community planning intelligent robot behavior and the discrete event systems (DES)
community. In AI, the planning problem is typically represented as a set of actions, each with
preconditions and postconditions. Then, planning algorithms search for a sequence of actions
that will lead the system from the initial state to the goal state. In discrete event systems, the
system (plant) is a transition system with states and transitions. The main problem addressed
by the discrete event systems community is finding a supervisory controller that chooses
which controlled transitions to take so that the system achieves a required high-level behavior.
This work falls in the area of interest of the DES community as characterized above. Based
on some concepts from our earlier works (Roszkowska 2005; Reveliotis and Roszkowska
2011; Roszkowska and Reveliotis 2013), the paper contributes with a multi-level, hierarchical
control system, where the logic of robot coordination is developed using the DES formalism.

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428 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

The proposed models ensure the correct space sharing by a group of robots through imposing
certain constraints on their motion, and can be applied to mobile robots accomplishing any
arbitrarily assumed missions in both centralized and distributed supervisory control architec-
tures. To respect the requirements of a so-defined DES-based supervisory-control scheme,
the robots need to modify their individual motion control profiles, based on the CTS (Con-
tinuous Time System) abstraction. Consequently, the control of a team of multiple mobile
robots, requires a hybrid control system, incorporating both DES and CTS control layers.
One of the basic issues when modeling a multiple mobile robot system (MMRS) in the
form of a DES is the concept of its discrete representation. In the works cited above, two
main approaches can be distinguished: i) division of robot motion paths into sub-paths or
sectors, and ii) division of the robot motion area into sub-areas or cells. Then, a simple
solution of the problem of collision-free robot movement consists of controlling the robot
transitions between sectors/cells and, in the case of a potential conflict, refraining the robot
from entering the next sector/cell until the conflict disappears. In approach (i), a conflict occurs
if the minimal distance between two sectors respectively occupied by two robots does not
provide a desired degree of separation between them. In approach (ii), a conflict is a situation
where more than one robot occupies the same cell. More complex solutions allow exceeding
these constraints, which potentially leads to more efficient MMRS performance, but require
additional robot coordination levels. Introduction of the constraints ensuring collision-free
robot motion has a side effect that is the deadlock phenomenon, whose handling requires
imposing further restriction on the supervisory control. To achieve realization of the required
logic, the robots must be able to modify their motion and be equipped with a set of CTS robot
control algorithms that induce adequate motion modes.
In the following sections we present a three-level control system, including a central
supervisor, local controllers of robot motion mode, and low-level robot control. Capitalizing
on earlier results we introduce a common framework for three supervisory control models
and propose relevant solutions for the local supervisors. The different models are subjected
to simulation experiments aimed at comparing their impact on the MMRS performance.

2 Assumptions and requirements

We consider a Multiple Mobile Robot System (MMRS) viewed as a group of autonomous

mobile robots sharing a 2D space. Each robot performs a mission that requires it to travel
along a specific path. The path of each robot is planned independently, without taking into
account any positional constraints introduced by the paths of other robots. The robots operate
asynchronously and are able to control their motion with path-following algorithms that allow
each of them to correctly perform its mission when alone on the stage. When sharing the
motion space, the robots must refine their motion strategies in order to avoid collisions,
through modification of their paths, velocity profiles, or both.
The objective of the MMRS control is to ensure that the operation of the system is correct
and efficient, which generates the following problems:

1. How to modify dynamically the initially assumed motion control of the robots so that:
(a) at each moment of their motion, the areas occupied by the robots are disjoint,
(b) in a finite time interval, all the robots will have accomplished their missions.
2. How to induce efficient MMRS behavior within the admissible (i.e. observing require-
ments (1.a) and (1.b)) robot concurrent operation.

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 429

As can be noticed, satisfaction of requirement (1.a) implies collision-free motion of the

robots, whereas requirement (1.b) ensures that the modification of the initially assumed robot
motion strategies will guarantee their convergence to the destination points and occurrence of
no such side effects as deadlocks or starvation. Requirement (2) implies the need of a flexible
model of MMRS control, that leaves room for the optimization of the system efficiency, and of
tools to carry it out. The notion efficiency refers to real-valued measures of individual robots
performance or their combination into single scalar criteria to be optimized. For example, a
typical individual criterion for a robot accomplishing its travel mission is the minimal travel
time, and a system performance criterion is the minimal time taken by the last robot to reach
its goal.
To achieve realization of these postulates, we propose a hierarchical, hybrid control based
on the concept of dividing the robot motion processes into stages and consisting of three
control levels:

• stage transition control

• stage pass control
• robot motion control

The stages of robot travel processes arise from the partition of robot paths into sectors; the
presence of a robot in a particular sector determines the current stage of its motion process.
The two upper control levels are supervisors that provide the logic of the admissible progress
of each particular robot on its path. The stage transition control decides if a robot can transfer
from one sector to the next one in a way that ensures no collisions or deadlocks among the
robots. The stage pass control defines a set of robot motion modes (e.g., constant velocity,
acceleration, deceleration, standstill) and the logic of their application. They take the form of
a state machine that enables each robot to conform to the decisions set at the stage transition
control level. Finally, the motion control is a set of CTS robot control algorithms that induce
the motion of a robot in the modes defined by the mode control.

3 Stage transition control

In this section, we discuss DES models of MMRS to be applied for the supervisory control
of the robot motion processes. First, we introduce an uncontrolled MMRS, a DES model
of the system of asynchronous robot motion processes, and next, we modify it in order to
ensure the required behavior of the system. Moreover, as mentioned in Section 1, two ways
of the discrete representation of MMRS can be considered: direct partition of robot paths
into sectors, and indirect partition of robot paths into sectors, resulting from the division of
the motion space into cells. Both of these approaches will be considered below.

3.1 Uncontrolled model of MMRS

For the purposes of the supervisory control development, we will view MMRS as a set of
mobile robots A = {Ai : i = 1 . . . n} sharing a planar work space W S. Each robot Ai is
represented by a disk with radius ai , and a curve pi describing the path followed by Ai . Being
a curve on a plane, each path pi is a continuous map from a one-dimensional space R to R2 .
Thus, in the X Y coordinate system, pi is represented with two functions: xi (l) and yi (l), and
the starting and ending points, (xis , yis ) and (xie , yie ), respectively. At the supervisory control
level of MMRS, instead of the detailed knowledge of the robots’ and paths’ geometry, the

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430 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

control model will use a map of MMRS topology, given in the form of a certain relation
between robot stages distinguished as follows.
Let P = { pik : i = 1 . . . n, k = 1 . . . m i } be the set of path sectors obtained through an
arbitrary partition of each path pi into sub-paths pik such that for each k > 1, the end-point of
pik−1 is the start-point of pik . Then Z = Z 1 ∪ Z 2 ∪ . . . ∪ Z n , where Z i = {z ik : k = 1 . . . m i },
is the set of robot stages. The stages represent in a discrete way the states of the robot motion
processes. In particular, robot Ai traveling along the k-th sector of its path is at stage z ik .
The dynamics of the so characterized MMRS will be viewed as an event-driven system,
described in terms of a deterministic automaton (Cassandras and Lafortune 2010).

Definition 1 A deterministic automaton is a 6-tuple G = (S, E, , f , s0 , S M ), where

• S is the set of states.
• E is the set of events. The occurrence of an event causes a state transition in G.
•  : S → 2 E is the feasible event function. Event e ∈ E can occur in state s ∈ S iff
e ∈ (s).
• f : S × E → S is the transition function. f is a partial function defined for pairs (s, e)
such that e ∈ (s), i.e., event e is feasible in state s. s  = f (s, e) is the new state resulting
from the occurrence of event e in state s.
• s0 ∈ S is the initial state.
• S M ⊆ S is the set of marked states.

In the discrete picture of MMRS, the state of each robot Ai is distinguished with the
accuracy of a stage number, that is, state si of robot Ai is given by the number k of its current
stage z ik . The state of the system of n robots will be represented by the vector of the robot
stage numbers (s1 , s2 , . . . , sn ). The event set E of MMRS will be constituted by the events
ei , i = 1 . . . n, associated with stage transitions of each robot Ai . In the initial (final) state,
each robot Ai is at stage 1 (stage m i , resp.). The uncontrolled MMRS is defined as follows.

Definition 2 Given the set of robot stages Z = {z ik : i = 1 . . . n, k = 1 . . . m i },

the uncontrolled model of MMRS, U -M M R S(Z ) is a deterministic automaton G =
(S, E, , f , s0 , S M ) such that:

• S = {s = (s1 , s2 , ..., sn ) ∈ N1 × N2 × . . . × Nn }, where Ni = {1, . . . , m i }

• E = {ei : i = 1..n}
• (s1 , s2 , ..., sn ) = {ei : si < m i }
• f ((s1 , s2 , ..., sn ), ei ) = (s1 , . . . , si−1 , si + 1, si+1 , . . . , sn )
• s0 = (1, 1, . . . , 1),
• S M = {sm }, where sm = (m 1 , m 2 , . . . , m n )

The above defined model represents asynchronous robot movement. Thus, any event ei can
occur in any state s providing that robot Ai has not reached its final stage yet. The occurrence
of event ei affects only the state of robot Ai , that is, the value of the i-th component of s
changes from si to si + 1.

3.2 Collision avoidance in -MMRS

We will use the following information about the robot paths’ geometry in order to ensure
collision-free robot movement.

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 431

Definition 3 Given the set of robot path sectors P and the values ai , i = 1 . . . n of the robot
disks’ radii, the stage conflict relation is the subset ξ ⊆ Z × Z such that ∀i, j = 1..n,
∀k = 1..m i , ∀l = 1..m j : (z ik , z lj ) ∈ ξ iff i  = j and dmin ( pik , plj ) < ai + a j ; where
dmin ( pik , plj ) is the minimal distance between path sectors pik and plj .
The concept of the conflict relation is illustrated in Fig. 1 that depicts two paths, p1 and p2 ,
of two robots, A1 and A2 , respectively. Path p1 consists of six sectors, p11 - p16 , and path p2
consists of seven sectors, p21 - p27 . Thus, the stage set Z = {z 1k : k = 1..6∪{z 2k : k = 1..7}. The
stage conflict relation ξ includes the sectors that cross each other: {(z 12 , z 26 ), (z 13 , z 25 ), (z 15 , z 22 )},
their symmetric pairs: {(z 26 , z 12 ), (z 25 , z 13 ), (z 22 , z 15 )}, and the pairs of stages corresponding to
the sectors that do not intersect, but the shortest distance between them is less than the sum
of the robots radii: {(z 13 , z 24 ), (z 24 , z 13 )}.
The following property lets us define a strategy for robot traffic coordination that ensures
no collisions among the robots.
Property 1 The sub-spaces occupied by any pair of robots Ai , A j ∈ A are always disjoint if
their respective conflicting stages never overlap each other in time. That is, for each conflicting
pair (z ik , z lj ) ∈ ξ , the entry of robot Ai into path sector pik prevents the entry of robot A j into
path sector plj as long as robot Ai does not leave pik .
Proof It stems directly from the definition of the conflict-relation. If conflicting stages never
overlap in time then the distance between any two robots will always exceed the sum of their
disk radii. Hence the sub-spaces occupied by any two robots will be disjoint.
The set of stages Z and the stage conflict relation ξ give the parameters of a discrete
representation of MMRS. Note that the new abstraction does not involve robots’ paths, that
is, any direct information on the system geometry. Instead, it consists of a set Z of abstract
elements and a well-defined relation ξ on Z . The "well-defined" requirement means that the
consideration is limited to such a class of relations that arise from geometrical systems, and
no initial or final stage of any robot is in conflict with any other stage in Z . More precisely,
we will require that: i) for each ξ , there exists a set of planar paths that can be divided into
sectors related in the way given by ξ , and ii) for each i = 1..n, neither stage z i1 nor z im i is in
conflict with any stage in Z ,
In order to avoid collisions, the robots must observe the mutual exclusion of conflict stages.
Thus, robot Ai must not change stage from z ik to z ik+1 if any robot A j is currently on stage z lj

Fig. 1 Example paths of two mobile robots, partitioned arbitrarily into sectors. Robot stages z 1k and zl2 conflict
iff dmin ( p1k , p2l ) < a1 + a2

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432 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

and stages z ik+1 and z lj are in conflict. Otherwise the event associated with the state transition
is feasible. Implementation of this principle in the uncontrolled model U -M M R S requires
a relevant restriction of function (s), and yields a collision-free control model, ξ -M M R S.

Definition 4 For each well defined pair (Z w , Dw ), ξ -M M R S(Z , ξ ) is a deterministic

automaton G = (S, E, , f , s0 , S M ) such that:
• the state set S, the event set E, the transition function f , the initial state s0 , and the
marked-state set S M are defined in the same way as in Definition 2 for U -M M R S(Z )
• the feasible event function is given by:

(s1 , s2 , ..., sn ) = {ei : si < m i ∧ ∀ j = 1..n, (z isi +1 , z j j ) ∈

s
/ ξ}

Function (s) ensures that each event ei , associated with stage transition by robot Ai , is
feasible in state s iff robot Ai has not reached yet its final stage and its next stage, z isi +1 , is
not in conflict with the current stage, s j , of any robot A j . The automaton model of MMRS
gives the logic of the relative robots’ progress on their paths, which, due to that no states with
conflict stages are reachable, allows the robots to avoid colliding with one another.

3.3 Collision avoidance in D-MMRS

A discrete model of MMRS operation can also be obtained through partitioning of the motion
space W S into a set W of squares with a side length of at least the diameter of the robot disk,
called cells. A graphical illustration of such a space division is given in Fig. 2, where the cell
borders are depicted by solid horizontal and vertical lines. As can be noticed, depending on
its location in W , the disk of a robot will overlap from one to four cells at a time. The subset

Fig. 2 Robots’ work space partitioned into cells (solid lines), and their further partitioning into areas of a
fixed number of overlapped cells (dashed lines). Depending on the position of the center of the robot disk, it
overlaps 1 cell (A1 ), 2 cells (A2 ), 3 cells (A3 ), or 4 cells (A4 )

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 433

of the cells overlapped or occupied by robot Ai can be effectively determined by the relative
position of the center point of Ai with respect to another partitioning of the motion plane,
induced by the geometry of the cells and the robot disk, and depicted by the dashed lines in
the figure. A robot with its disk center in the inner square of a cell (case A1 ) overlaps one cell,
a robot with its disk center in any of the adjacent rectangles belonging to two neighboring
cells (case A2 ) overlaps these two cells, a robot with its disk center in a corner square of the
cell, but not in the circle inscribed in this square (case A3 ), overlaps three cells, and a robot
with its disk center in a corner circle of a cell (case A4 ) overlaps four cells.
As follows from the above discussion, the path of any robot can be divided into maximal
sectors characterized by that at each position of the robot disk center within a sector, the robot
overlaps the same subset of cells. The beginnings and ends of such sectors are determined
by the intersection points of the path with the induced grid, depicted with dashed lines. An
example of such a path partitioning is given in Fig. 3. The path is divided into eight sectors
that define eight respective stages of the robot travel. The table below the figure lists the
subsets of cells overlapped by the disk of the robot at each particular stage.
Note that in ξ -M M R S, the set of robot stages Z arises from any arbitrary partition of
the paths into sectors. In contrast, in the model considered now, the set of stages depends
on the work space partition into cells and the geometry of the paths. Clearly, if no cell is
occupied by more than one robot at a time, the sub-spaces overlapped by the robot disks are
disjoint and no collision among the robots occurs. To determine the model that implements
this principle, we will treat the set of cells W as system resources, and define the resource
requirement function
D : Z → 2W (1)

For each z ik ∈ Z , D(z ik ) ⊂ W indicates the subset of cells occupied by robot Ai at its k-th
stage, k = 1 . . . m i . Similar to the specification of ξ -M M R S, we will require that the pair
(Z , D) be well defined, that is, i) the values of function D arise from the geometry of the

Fig. 3 Robot path divided into maximal stages with constant subsets of cells overlapped by the disk of the
robot traveling along this path

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434 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

system, and ii) for each robot Ai ∈ A, the resource sets required for its initial and final stage
are ’private’ singletons, i.e., Ai is entirely located in a cell that is not required for any other
stage in Z . The parameters Z and D allow us to modify function (s) in the uncontrolled
U -M M R S(Z ) so that the robot movement is collision-free.

Definition 5 For each well defined pair (Z , D), D-M M R S(Z , D) is a deterministic automa-
ton G = (S, E, , f , s0 , S M ) such that:
• the state set S, the event set E, the transition function f , the initial state s0 , and the
marked-state set S M are defined in the same way as in Definition 2 for M M R S(Z )
• the feasible event function is given by:
s s
(s1 , s2 , ..., sn ) = {ei : si < m i ∧ ∀ j = 1..n, j  = i, R j j ∩ Ri i+1 = ∅}

As defined above, event ei is feasible in state s = (s1 , s2 , ..., sn ) iff for each robot A j  = Ai ,
s
the set of resources used in the current state s, R j j , and the set of resources required by robot
s
Ai at its next stage z i+1 , Ri i+1 , are disjoint. This ensures that in each state reachable from
s0 , the subsets of resources used by any two robots are disjoint, i.e., no cell is overlapped by
more than one robot at a time, hence no collisions occur.

4 Deadlock avoidance in MMRS

The MMRS models discussed in the previous sections, ξ -M M R S and D-M M R S, satisfy
requirement (1.a) imposed on the control system, that is, ensure collision-free traffic of the
robots. Fulfillment of condition (1.b) - deadlock-free robot movement - requires a further
restriction of the possibility of event occurrence given by function (s). The approach to
the development of a relevant deadlock-avoidance algorithm depends on the computational
complexity of the coaccessibility problem for a given class of models. The problem consist
in determining whether or not a given reachable state s is coaccessible, i.e., whether or not
the final state sm is reachable from s. As similar problems have been studied in the context
of Resource Allocation Systems (RAS) taxonomy (Reveliotis 2005), in the next section, we
will consider the MMRS models in this framework.

4.1 RAS classification of MMRS models

The RAS classification applies to systems of discrete processes that share a a set of resources
in a non-preemptive manner. Each process consists of a set of stages, and each resource is
characterized by its capacity or the number of its units. Subclasses of RAS are distinguished by
two criteria: the required execution order of the process stages, and the resource requirements
of the process stages. Specifically, the LIN-CON-RAS class consists of the systems having
a linearly ordered set of stages and resource requirements defined by the function

D : Z → RM S (2)

where R M S is the set of all finite multisets

|R|
b = i=1 bi Ri , bi ∈ {0, 1, . . .} (3)

defined for a resource set R = {R1 , R2 , . . . R|R| }.

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 435

The class of RASs corresponding to D-M M R S is a sub-class of LIN-CON-RAS called

FREE-RANGE-RAS (Reveliotis and Roszkowska 2011). Both these classes deal with linear
processes, yet in FREE-RANGE-RAS, each resource has only one unit, and the resource
requirement function is more specific. Namely, in LIN-CON-RAS, the values of of function
D are any multisets of R, whereas in FREE-RANGE-RAS, for each z ik ∈ Z , D(z ik ) is a
multiset with at most one copy of each element of R, i.e., it is a set D(z ik ) = Rik ⊂ R, and
consists of only 1 to 4 resources, depending on the geometry of the path sector followed by
robot Ai at its k-th stage.
For reasons explained later, we will also consider another subclass of LIN-CON-RAS,
namely FREE-RANGE*-2-RAS (Roszkowska and Reveliotis 2013). This class differs from
FREE-RANGE-RAS in two aspects:
• the capacity of each resource is equal to 2, i.e., each cell can be occupied by up to 2
robots at a time, and
• the path of each robot avoids the areas where the robot’s disk overlaps more than two cells
at a time. That is, each robot traverses a sequence of cells and its motion process consists
of, alternately, a stage when the robot’s disk fits entirely in the cell it is traversing, and a
stage when the robot transits to the next cell occupying two cells - the previous and the
next one.
The automaton modeling this type of MMRS, denoted by D-2-M M R S, differs from
D-M M R S by its feasible event function (s).

Definition 6 For each well defined pair (Z , D), D-2-M M R S(Z , D) is a deterministic
automaton G = (S, E, , f , s0 , S M ) such that:
• the state set S, the event set E, the transition function f , the initial state s0 , and the
marked-state set S M are defined in the same way as in Definition 2 for M M R S(Z )
• the feasible event function is given by:
s s
(s1 , s2 , ..., sn ) = {ei : si < m i ∧  nj=1 | (Ri i+1 \ Risi ) ∩ R j j | ≤ 1}

Taking into account that in the considered model, the resource requirement Rik is a set of
either one cell or two adjacent cells, we can distinguish two cases of the event feasibility: i)
Ri i+1 \ Risi = {w}, w ∈ W , and ii) Risi \ Ri i+1 = {w  }, w  ∈ W . Case (i) concerns the event
s s

ei that represents the start of a transition of robot Ai to its next cell w  , which is feasible
providing that this cell is occupied by no more than one other robot, hence can be allocated
to Ai . Case (ii) concerns the event ei that represents the end of a transition of robot Ai to cell
w, which is always feasible as w ∈ Risi , i.e., cell w has already been allocated to Ai , and no
more resources to do this are required. On the contrary, the occurrence of ei results in the
release of the previous cell w  by robot Ai .
Note that D-2-M M R S ensures the collision avoidance providing that no collision occurs
among any two robots sharing a single cell. Thus, another control level is needed to coordinate
the robot motion within a cell.
The model M M R S(Z , ξ ), using the conflict relation for avoiding collisions, does not
belong to the RAS taxonomy, but can be equivalently transformed to a class of RAS. To
do this, with each two conflicting stages we associate a distinct resource to be used on the
mutually exclusive basis. Consequently, the resource set is defined by

R = {Riklj = R lk
ji : (z i , z j ) ∈ ξ }
k l
(4)

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436 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

Since each stage z ik ∈ Z can be in conflict with a number of other stages z lj ∈ Z , j  = i,

the motion process of each robot Ai , i = 1..n, will be viewed as a sequence of stages z ik ,
k = 1..m i , each of which requires a subset of resources Rik ⊂ R, where:
Rik = D(z ik ) = {Riklj : (z ik , z lj ) ∈ ξ } (5)

Note that for stages z ik that are not in conflict with any other stage, the resource set Rik = ∅.
The principle of collision avoidance is in this case the same as in D-M M R S, i.e., the mutually
exclusive use of resources. Thus, in both cases, we can use the same automaton model given
in Definition 7. However, one should keep in mind that in each case, D-M M R S(Z , D) is
defined for its specific class of parameters (Z , D), arising from its specific way of determining
the stages Z and their resource requirements D.

4.2 Deadlock avoidance algorithms

The optimal, i.e., the least restrictive approach to avoid deadlocks is to forbid the occurrence
of only those events that get a negative solution of the following decision problem: Given a
coaccessible state s and a feasible event ei ∈ (s), is state s  = f (s, ei ) coaccessible Alas,
as proved in Reveliotis and Roszkowska (2010), the coaccessibility problem is NP-hard in
FREE-RANGE-RAS, which makes it practically impossible to develop an optimal deadlock
avoidance algorithm for D-M M R S(Z , D) systems in the case when the set of stages Z
and the resource requirement function D are determined based on the work space partition
into cells. For D-M M R S systems obtained from ξ -M M R S, although no formal proof of the
computational complexity has been demonstrated, the construction of a polynomial algorithm
to solve the coaccessibility problem does not seem easily achievable. Therefore for both
classes of D-M M R S, we will use the same policy, a compromise solution that is not optimal
but allows calculation of the decisions in polynomial time.
To provide the correct operation of MMRS, in each current state s, we will screen the
events in (s). That is, we substitute the feasible-event function (s) with a more restrictive
admissible-event function  ∗ (s) that ensures the reachability of the final state sm from each
state s reachable under the screening policy from the initial state s0 .
The admissibility test assumes distinguishing between two types of stages: private and
shared. In D-M M R S, obtained from ξ -M M R S, where the resource set R represents the
conflicts among stages, stage z ik ∈ Z is private if the required resource set Rik = ∅. In
D-M M R S, where the resource set R is the set of cells, stage z ik ∈ Z is private if for each
z lj ∈ Z , i  = j, Rik ∩ R lj = ∅, i.e., no robot A j  = Ai ever occupies any cell that belongs to the
resource requirements of z ik . Otherwise stage z ik is shared. We will consider event ei ∈ (s ∗ )
as admissible if the next state s = f (s ∗ , ei ) is found safe by the following algorithm.

State safety test

Input:
Examined state s = [s1 , . . . , sn ]
For all robots Ai and their all stages z ik :
− resource requirement Rik ⊂ R,
− stage type T ype(i, k) ∈ { private, shar ed}
1. Set the content of the working robot set A∗ = A
2. For each Ai ∈ A find the nearest private stage, i.e., the smallest value bi ≥ si such that
T ype(i, bi ) = private.

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 437

3. In A∗ , find robot Ai such that no other robot in A∗ is allocated any resource required by
any stage between the current stage of Ai , z isi , and its nearest private stage z ibi .
IF robot Ai does not exist THEN EXIT {state s is not safe }
ELSE A∗ = A∗ \ {Ai }.
4. IF A∗  = ∅ THEN GO TO 3 ELSE EXIT {state s is safe}

Below, we prove that the restriction of event occurrence to those that are admissible ensures
the reachability of the final state i.e., deadlock avoidance.
Theorem 1 For M M R S(Z , D) as in Definition 7, let (s) be restricted to only such events
ei that the potential next state s  = f (s, ei ) is found safe by the state-safety test. Then the
final state sm is reachable from each state reachable from the initial one.
Proof The algorithm finds state s  safe iff there exists an order of robots such that, one by
one, they can move to their nearest private stages. Clearly, from such a state, the robots can,
one by one, reach their final stages.
In contrast to the above discussed models, the coaccesibility problem has an optimal,
scalable solution for systems in FREE-RANGE*-2-RAS class (Roszkowska and Reveliotis
2013), described here by automata D-2-M M R S. Note that in this model, the events repre-
senting the end of the transition of robot Ai from one cell to the next one are associated with
the release of the previous cell and require no additional resource. Thus, their occurrence can-
not render the state unsafe. Consequently, we can merge each pair of events -representing the
start and the end of the transition of robot Ai from one cell to the next one - and consider such
a transition as one event ei . Then, the set of stages Z only comprises the stages z ik associated
with the presence of a robot in a cell, and their resource requirements are single cells defined
by D : Z → W . In this case, a well-defined pair (Z , D) requires that for each robot Ai ,
i = 1 . . . n, stages z i1 and z im i are private, and for each k = 2..m i , the resource requirements
of stages z ik−1 and z ik are vertically or horizontally adjacent cells w = D(z ik−1 ) ∈ W and
w  = D(z ik ) ∈ W , respectively.
The automaton modeling this type of MMRS, denoted by D-2-M M R S ∗ , differs from
D-2-M M R S by the feasible event function (s) and is defined as follows.
Definition 7 For each well defined pair (Z , D), D-2-M M R S ∗ is a deterministic automaton
G = (S, E, , f , s0 , S M ) such that:
• the state set S, the event set E, the transition function f , the initial state s0 , and the
marked-state set S M are defined in the same way as in Definition 2 for M M R S(Z )
• the feasible event function is given by:
s s
(s1 , s2 , ..., sn ) = {ei : si < m i ∧  nj=1 | (Ri i+1 ∩ R j j | ≤ 1}
The feasibility and admissibility of the event occurrence in D-2-M M R S ∗ can be con-
sidered in terms of the feasibility and admissibility of the allocation to the robots their next
required cells. The algorithm for state-safety testing is based on the analysis of the cell
allocation graph that is defined below and illustrated with an example depicted in Fig. 4.
Definition 8 A cell allocation graph G is a directed graph that depicts the state of the cell
allocation and the nearest further needs of the robots. The vertices of G represent the cells,
and the arcs of G represent the active robots. There exists arc Ai = (wk , wl ) in G iff robot
Ai occupies cell wk and the next stage of its route is cell wl .

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438 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

Fig. 4 An example resource allocation graph (lower part of the figure) corresponding to a group of robots
executing their missions. The upper part of the figure depicts the distribution of the robots in the motion area
as well as the directions towards their next cells on the route

Next we employ this concept for the feasible and admissible cell allocation to the robots.

Definition 9 Given a graph G and an arc Ai = (wk , wl ), allocation of cell wl to robot Ai is

feasible iff cell wl has less than two outgoing arcs (wl is allocated to less than two robots).
Allocation of cell wl to robot Ai is admissible iff any of the following conditions holds:

1. wl is the last cell on the route of robot Ai , or

2. in graph G, wl has no outgoing arcs (cell wl is not allocated to any robot), or
3. in graph G  , obtained from G by allocating cell wl to robot Ai and deallocating cell wk ,
there exists a path from vertex wl to some vertex w p that has no more than one outgoing
arc (i.e., to cell w p that is allocated to at most one robot)

If the allocation of the next required cell wl to robot Ai is admissible in state s then the
event ei representing the transition of the robot from its current cell wk to wl will also be
considered as admissible. This results in the following theorem.

Theorem 2 For D-2-M M R S ∗ , let (s) be restricted to only such events ei that are admissible
in state s. Then the final state sm is reachable from each state reachable from the initial one.

Proof D-2-M M R S ∗ is an automaton model of FREE-RANGE*-2-RAS systems considered

in Roszkowska and Reveliotis (2013), where their liveness under the admissibility conditions
is proved. This implies reachability of the final state (hence, also deadlock-free robot motion)
also in this case.

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 439

4.3 Architecture of the central MMRS supervisor

Figure 5 shows the architecture of the central supervisor implementing the established logic.
It is assumed that the robots move autonomously within path sectors as well as they can cross
a sector border if it is associated with event ei causing a release of a resource. A transition
to the next sector, associated with event ei , that requires an additional resource, must be
authorized by the supervisor. Issuing such a permission to robot Ai is a controllable event
nexti . In addition, there are two observable events api , and r pi related to the achievement
of certain points on the path by robot Ai , and the transmission of this information to the
supervisor. Event api reports the approach of robot Ai to the next sector and a request for
permission to enter it. Event r pi announces the transition of robot Ai ’s to the sector that does
not require permission and the release of no more needed resources.
The supervisor maintains the state of MMRS, which is changed by event occurrence.
Event nexti can occur in state s if a prior event api occurred and event ei is admissible in
s. If the supervisor decides to activate it, a message nexti is sent to robot Ai and the state
of the supervisor is updated to s  = f (s, ei ). Receipt of a message of type r p announces a
sector change by the robot that sent it, and is directly followed by a relevant state update.
Receipt of a message of type ap causes placement of the robot that sent it in the queue of
robots awaiting permission to enter next sector. The queue is sorted according to the adopted
priority rule. If event ei , where Ai is the the first element of the queue, is admissible in the
current state s, a message of type next is sent to robot Ai . Next, this robot is removed from
the list of waiting robots and the state of the system is updated. Otherwise, the above process
is repeated for the next robot in the queue.

5 Stage pass control

Implementation of the established logic raises the problem of how to prevent a robot from
entering a new sector when it is has not received permission from the supervisor to do this.
Moreover, whereas all the discussed models ensure the correct transition of robots between
path sectors, in D-2-M M R S, collisions can occur among two robots that are allowed in a
single cell. Both of these problems concern the behavior of the robots when passing through
a given sector of the path, and are studied in this section.

5.1 Robot motion mode control

As mentioned in the previous section, the supervisor communicates with robots using mes-
sages, whose sending and receiving can be viewed as events. The supervisor generates only
one event, next, and the robots inform the supervisor about reaching two characteristic points
on their path sectors: ap - request to enter the next path sector, and r p - information about
transition to a new sector, whose entering does not require permission. Additionally, each
robot can sense the critical points cp, lying at the braking distance from its path sectors’ ends..
Figure 6 depicts an automaton modeling the robot motion-mode control during its travel in a
sector and transition to the next one. We distinguish four motion modes: next sector, towards
cp, deceleration, acceleration, and standstill,
In the initial or the final state, and while waiting for the permission to enter the next sector,
the robot remains in the standstill state. Occurrence of event next allows the robot to start
moving to the next path sector and results in the transition to state acceleration. The robot

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440 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

Fig. 5 Architecture of the central MMRS supervisor

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 441

Fig. 6 Robot motion-mode control

remains in this state until the velocity v = vmax , and continues its motion with constant
velocity in the next path sector. The occurrence of event r p signals that the robot has entered
a consecutive sector (a sector that does not require supervisor’s authorization). Occurrence
of event ap signals that the robot is approaching a consecutive sector and asks permission to
enter it. If the event next occurs before the critical point cp is reached, the robot proceeds to
the next sector. Otherwise, at point cp, the robot changes its motion mode to deceleration and
starts awaiting signal next, which can occur after the robot has come to the standstill or still
when decelerating. In both cases, having received the next signal, the robot starts accelerating
and heads to the next sector.

5.2 Cell traverse control in D-2-MMRS

With the cell transition control discussed in the previous section, the problem of correct
robot motion in D-2-M M R S reduces to enabling collision-free movement of two robots
within a cell. Achieving this goal requires an online policy to modify the paths of the robots,
that takes into account the specifics of their missions. In this work, two such solutions are
considered. In the case of no-task cells, i.e., when there are no particular locations that the
robots are supposed to visit, we assume the establishment of virtual roundabouts to ensure
the correct traffic. If, however, the robots must be able to reach some arbitrarily designated
points in the motion area, i.e., in the case of task cells, the traffic on roundabouts is no more
a satisfactory solution, and we focus on a reactive collision avoidance method, based on the
Artificial Potential Field (APF) abstraction. These two solutions can also be combined if
needed, as e.g. in the puck collection system. Then the robots traversing concurrently a cell

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442 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

with no pucks travel on roundabout, whereas the motion of robots in cells containing pucks
is coordinated using the APF concept.
The role of the cell-traverse control is to supervise the entry of each robot into a new cell
and its travel in the cell in the case when the cell is being shared with another robot and their
paths are conflicting. The latter property means that the paths of the robots either cross in this
cell or do not cross but go in the opposite direction and the minimal distance between them
is shorter than the sum of the robots radii. Otherwise, that is if the robot is the only user of a
cell or the robots’ paths are not conflicting, no supervision of their motion is necessary. The
supervisor communicates both, with the cell transition controller and the robot controllers,
and takes action as soon as some robot Ai gets allocated a new cell wk . The control takes the
following steps.

General scheme of the cell-traverse control

1. If cell wk is only allocated to robot Ai , or it is also allocated to another robot A j but their
paths in wk are not conflicting then prompt Ai to enter wk and continue its initial travel
plan. Otherwise go to (2).
2. Since (1) is not true, there exists another robot, say A j , that was allocated cell wk earlier
than Ai . If A j has already been allocated its next cell, say wl , then wait until it has
finished the transit to wl and go to (1). Otherwise go to (3).
3. If wk is a no-task cell then apply roundabout-control. Otherwise go to (4).
4. Apply APF-control.

The control procedures called in steps (3) and (4) of this algorithm are discussed below.

Roundabout-control
The RC procedure is not called unless some robot Ai is permitted to enter a new no-task cell
wk that is already occupied by another robot A j . The control takes the form of a supervisor
that induces a change of the robots’ motion modes. The robots are commanded to enter
one by one the roundabout, head towards their cell exits, and either directly leave the circle
and drive to the next cell or wait at the roundabout until such a transition is enabled by the
cell-transition controller. If the way to the exit of the robot supposed to leave the cell first is
blocked by the other robot then the latter is ordered to make another circle on the roundabout
and thus let the former reach the exit. Moreover, it is assumed that the robots are equipped
with proximity sensors, which allows them to keep the distance and avoid collisions between
each other. Alternatively, the collision free motion can be enforced centrally based on a RAS
model. In this case the roundabout is partitioned into sectors that represent resources, and
the supervisor controls their mutually exclusive use. The left part of Fig. 7 shows exemplary
robot paths on the roundabout. The actual shape of the path entry on the roundabout will
depend on the kinematics of the robots.

APF-control
The APF-control procedure is called each time when some robot Ai is permitted to enter
a new task-cell wk that is already occupied by another robot A j . In this case, one or both
robots need to visit some specific locations in the cell and then head towards the entry to
their next cells. The AFP concept deals with the potential field constituted by attractive fields
and repulsive fields that induce attractive and repulsive forces, respectively. The robot is
represented by a particle that is subjected to these forces, which results in its movement. In

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 443

Fig. 7 Modification of the robot paths enforced by the cell-traverse control. Left figure shows the motion on
roundabout. Right figure illustrates the APF-control assumption that robot A j follows its path, while the path
of Ai is determined in real-time by the combination of the attractive APF force of the goal and the repulsive
APF forces of the borders and the other robot

planning the robot path, the attractive force is associated with the robot target, whereas the
repulsive forces, with the obstacles. When using this abstraction for the coordination of two
robots motion in a cell, we make the following assumptions.
• Robot Ai is subjected to the APF forces with the force interaction point placed in the
center of the robot’s disk.
• The borders, depicted by the dashed lines spaced from the sides of the cell by the radius
of the disc (see Fig. 7) are considered as obstacles, which ensures that when traversing
the cell, the robot is entirely contained in it. The repulsive force is only activated for the
borders of wk , that is of the cell currently traversed by robot Ai . During its transit to the
next cell, the forces of both cells are active, and once Ai leaves entirely wk , the repulsive
forces associated with the borders of wk get deactivated.
• The locations that robot Ai has to visit in cell wk are considered its targets, and modeled
as attractive potential fields that become activated in the order of their occurrence on
the initial robot path. That is, if there is no puck to pick in cell wk , the attractive force
associated with the exit from wk is immediately activated. Otherwise the attractive force
of the first puck to collect is activated and kept active until the puck gets collected. The
same is repeated for all the subsequent pucks and finally for the exit. Then the exit force
is deactivated and the robot either directly transits to the next cell or stops and waits for
the permission to continue its motion.
• The robots are considered as moving obstacle, generating a repulsive potential field,
which prevents collisions between them.
• Robot A j is not subjected to the APF forces (hence its path is not modified) unless at a
standstill, while awaiting permission to enter the next cell, blocks the exit of robot Ai .
Then the repulsive field of Ai is increased and the APF control for robot A j is initiated,
which makes it move aside.

When implementing this concept, the basic problem is the construction of smooth repulsive
and attractive APF functions over the extent of the configuration space. Their combination

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444 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

should provide high values when the robot is near to an obstacle, lower values when it is
further away, the lowest value at the desired goal location, and its increase when moving
to configurations that are further away. Then the gradient of such a function, defining the
resultant APF force, can be used to guide the robot to the desired configuration. The control
algorithm consists in the repeated calculation of its value for the subsequent positions of the
robot. The force vector indicates the direction of the robot motion at the current control step,
while the velocity function can be defined arbitrarily. For example, one can choose to move
at a constant speed until close enough to the target and then to scale the speed depending on
the distance to the target. Based on Matoui et al. (2015), we chose the following functions
to define the potential fields.

• Attractive Potential Field:

1 2
Uatt (X ) = kρ (X , X g ) (6)
2
where :
X = (x, y) – position of the robot
X g = (x g , yg ) – goal of the robot
ρ(X , X g ) = ||X g − X || – distance from robot to goal
K – positive scaling vector
The function Uattra (X ) is positive or null and attains the minimum in goal point. Attrac-
tive force: Fattra (X ) is the negative gradient of the attractive potential field function:
• Attractive force:
Fatt (X ) = −∇[Uatt (X )] = −kρ(X , X g ) (7)

• Repulsive Potential Field:

  
2η − if (X , X o ) ≤ ρo
1 1 1
Ur epu (X ) = ρ(X ,X o ) ρo (8)
0 if (X , X o ) > ρo

where:
ρ(X , X o ) – the minimum distance between the robot the obstacles
ρo – distance influence imposed by obstacles
η > 0 – positive scaling factor
• Repulsive force:
  
η ρ(X1,X o ) − 1
ρo
1
if (X , X o ) ≤ ρo
Fr ep (X ) = ∇[Ur ep (X )] = ρ 2 (X ,X o ) (9)
0 if (X , X o ) > ρo

The values of the scaling factors K and η, as well as of the distance influence ρo need to be
set experimentally. The force acting on robot Ai at a given position X is equal to the attractive
force generated by the nearest goal and the repulsive forces generated by the cell borders and
of the other robot, and can be calculated using the above defined functions.

−r obot goal
F(X ) = Frbor
ep
der
(X ) + Frother
ep + Fatt (10)

Using the direction of the force vector at position X , the next position of the robot, X  , is
calculated at a unit distance from X , which corresponds to the assumption of a constant speed
of Ai .

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 445

Fig. 8 State variables of the differential drive robot

6 Robot control

The low level robot control model reflects the specifics of the robot construction. In particular,
we assume the implementation of the control concept presented in this work for differential
drive robots, an example of which are Turtlebots. These robots have two separately driven
wheels placed on either side of its body, and an additional, free of control wheel, used for
their stabilization.
The state of the robot is represented with three variables: position (x, y) of the central
point of the robot disk, and its orientation θ (see Fig. 8). There are two control variables:
linear velocity v and angular velocity ω of the robot platform. The kinematic model of the
robot is described by the following differential equation:
⎛ ⎞ ⎛ ⎞ ⎛ ⎞
ẋ cos θ 0
q̇ = ⎝ ẏ ⎠ = ⎝ sin θ ⎠ v + ⎝0⎠ ω (11)
θ̇ 0 1
Then, the angular velocity of the robot is given by:
vr − vl
θ̇ = ω = (12)
D
where D is the distance between the centers of the wheels, and vl , vr are the linear velocities
of the left and right wheels, respectively. The velocity of the robot is the average of the
individual wheel velocities:
vl + vr D D
v= , where vl = v − ω, vr = v + ω (13)
2 2 2
The low-level robot controller is responsible for the motion execution. It contains a local
planner, which calculates the required wheel velocities given a path to be followed and the
current robot position with respect to this path. In the case of differential drive robots, the
angular and forward velocities can be calculated separately. The angular velocity is calculated

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446 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

based on the spline approximation to smoothly follow the path and to reduce any drift error
if it appears. The forward velocity of the robot depends on the motion modes required to
perform its mission and conform to the decisions of the higher level controllers. For the
‘accelerate’ and ‘decelerate’ modes it forms a trapezoidal velocity profile constrained with
maximum values of velocity, regular acceleration and deceleration. In the case of the ’stop’
requirement, an emergency break is activated to immediately stop the robot.

7 Simulation experiments

The aim of the simulation experiments was a comparison of the system behavior under the
established three supervisory control models. The research comprised three MMRS simula-
tion instances, each of which aimed at the visualization of the concurrent travel of a group
of robots along a specific set of paths as well as at the measurement of parameters such
as time and distance traveled by the robots. The considered assignments for the robot fleet
are delivery tasks specified by a set of locations to visit. The motion area was assumed to
be a square with side length of 30 m and each cell with dimension 2m × 2m. Animations
of the studied simulation instances are accessible at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/
1no1sHDCunRuXtzjt167SKy21hqW0g-ec?usp=sharing.

Experiment 1
The experiment included three instances, corresponding to the simulation of the robot move-
ment along the same cyclic paths, but under the supervision based on the three discussed
models, ξ -M M R S, D-M M R S, and D-2-M M R S. Figure 9 presents the considered motion
area and its tessellation employed in D-M M R S and D-2-M M R S. Next to the layout of

Fig. 9 Simulation instance 1 - 10 robots moving along cyclic paths. Motion space partitioned into cells with
depicted robots’ paths and their private sectors (lighter shade of the path color)

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 447

Fig. 10 Simulation instance 1 - 10 robots moving along cyclic paths. Approximation of the paths with Bezier
curves and their analytically established partition into sectors with the minimum length of the conflicting
stages

the robot paths, the figure depicts their private sectors (colored with a lighter shade of the
path’s color) and their shared sectors (uncolored) used in the state-safety algorithm. The
ξ -M M R S was established through path division based on the criterion of minimal length of
the conflicting sectors. To enable analytical optimization, the paths of robots were presented
in the mathematical form. Figure 10 depicts Bezier splines approximating the considered
paths together with their partition into sectors. The simulation assumed the red robots to pass
along their paths three times, the yellow, purple, brown and blue robots - twice, and the green
and black robots - once.
Table 1 presents the makespan the makespan Cmax (the completion time of the task
completed at the latest) values obtained using the the three supervisory control models. In
fact, the makespans values are very similar. The shortest time was achieved for D-2-M M R S,
but the difference between the other cases is less than 2%. Moreover, the approximation of
the paths with Bezier splines changed slightly their lengths.

Experiment 2

Table 1 Experiment 1: model Cmax [s] Total length [m]

simulation results
D-M M RS 234 999.8
D-2-M M RS 230 1004.4
ξ -M M RS 235 1016.8

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448 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

Fig. 11 Simulation instance 2 - the paths of 22 robots

The second scenario dealt with a system of an increased number of robots and their poten-
tial conflicts, and only concerned comparison of D-M M R S and D-2-M M R S supervisory
control models. Figure 11 shows the paths of the robots and their initial positions. The paths
of each robot had the same length, and each robots followed its path four times.
Table 2 presents the averaged results for 5 runs of each robot under the supervision of
D-M M R S and D-2-M M R S models. The following two basic observations can be made.
• The average distance traveled in system D-2-M M R S is about 0.84% longer than in
D-M M R S.
• Robots’ average task completion time is 10.87% lower in D-2-M M R S compared to
D-M M R S.
The obtained results are consistent with the expectations. The decrease of time in the case
of D-2-M M R S is due to both a better usage of the space (two robots in a cell) and a less
restrictive state-safety test.

Experiment 3
A possible approach to minimize the makespan is to provide more robots to the system and
divide between them long, perhaps cyclic, tasks. Figure 12 shows the path of five robots that
are to be cyclically tracked a fixed number of times. The red, green, yellow, and cyan robots
are supposed to make 5 cycles, and the navy-blue robot, traveling on the longest path, four
cycles. The realization of the last task was examined with its assignment to one robot, and its
division among two, three, and four robots., both for D-M M R S and D-2-M M R S control
systems. The obtained results are presented in Table 3. One can observe that introducing one

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 449

Table 2 Experiment 2: D-M M RS D-2-M M RS

simulation results Robot ID Distance [m] Time [s] Distance [m] Time [s]

R1 111.09 311.258 111.28 292.628

R2 111.11 352.73 112.22 307.03
R3 111.08 319.52 111.31 298.28
R4 111.12 342.10 111.69 300.11
R5 111.10 350.84 112.48 312.91
R6 111.08 352.80 112.70 312.49
R7 111.07 328.99 111.98 298.90
R8 111.09 330.96 111.64 299.45
R9 111.082 306.57 111.50 300.17
R10 111.09 333.02 111.45 299.18
R11 111.09 307.53 111.24 290.39
R12 111.07 384.93 111.71 294.61
R13 111.14 342.62 111.10 295.35
R14 111.09 369.43 112.25 302.40
R15 111.08 351.62 111.85 300.56
R16 111.08 332.82 114.07 324.15
R17 111.10 311.58 114.29 315.37
R18 111.07 315.94 113.18 317.79
R19 111.10 361.31 111.50 296.34
R20 111.11 350.94 112.01 303.79
R21 111.08 354.28 111.52 295.90
R22 111.08 350.16 111.44 292.79
Average 111.09 339.18 112.02 302.30

more robot reduces the makespan by nearly half. Each additional robot does not have such a
significant impact on shortening this time. For D − 2 − M M R S model, an acceleration of
3-4% relative to the D-M M R S can be noticed.
Other conclusions drown from the simulation experiments are as follows.

• Local maneuvers can make the robot paths longer, but only to a small extent in relation
to the total path length.
• Two robots allowed in the cell not always help with the system speedup if simultaneous
requests for resources are rare. Effect of this is significant when the instance is dense,
with more agents in the motion space. The time gain is visible in systems with longer,
perhaps cyclical tasks that could greatly benefit from the concurrent execution.
• Use of the potential field algorithm in the D-2-M M R S requires careful adjustment of
parameter values for forces between agents and resource barriers. Overly large values
may cause problems in maintaining the state of resource allocations in the supervisor
controller. This algorithm is computationally expensive and requires access to not always
available information (positions of other robots, their velocities).

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450 Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453

Fig. 12 Simulation instance 3: blue path is supposed to be traveled four times, and the remaining paths, five
times

8 Conclusions

This paper contributes with a hybrid, three-level control system for MMRS, comprising
a central supervisor that controls the robot transitions between the stages of their motion
processes, local controllers that induce the robot’s motion mode within a stage to suit the
supervisor’s decisions, and low-level robot controllers that are responsible for the required
motion-mode execution. As can be noticed, the solutions proposed for the highest control level
affect the solutions needed for the implementation of lower levels and, as a result, the operation
of the entire system. The paper mostly focuses on the two upper levels, leaving the specific
problems of robot control to be solved at the laboratory research stage. Within a common
framework, we considered three supervisory control models that differ in the discretization

Table 3 Experiment 3: simulation results

model Main task n Cmax [s] Total length [m]

D-M M RS 1 robot assigned 5 1960 2346.6

2 robots assigned 6 955 2341.6
3 robots assigned 7 636 2338.1
4 robots assigned 8 508 2335.0
D-2-M M RS 1 robot assigned 5 1898 2360.4
2 robots assigned 6 941 2362.3
3 robots assigned 7 612 2387.8
4 robots assigned 8 503 2403.1

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 451

of the robot continuous motion processes and/or the way of event occurrence restriction to
provide collision-, and deadlock-free traffic. Next we proposed relevant solutions for the local
controllers, and a general architecture of the supervisor that was implemented in a simulation
system. We conducted three experiments to compare the impact of the different solutions on
the performance of MMRS. The scenarios concerned transport tasks concurrently executed
by a team of robots. The main observation was that type of MMRS model used does not
affect the efficiency of the system as long as the layout of the robot paths is not very dense.
Then some differences were observed. However, further research is needed to determine the
influence of other system parameters on its performance, e.g., cell size, event prioritization
policy, or local controllers’ parameters. Other problems, such as, e.g., the impact of the robot
positioning precision or the communication packets loss on the system performance, need to
be established at the level of experiments with real robots.
Acknowledgements This research was partially supported by the National Science Centre, Poland, under the
project number 2016/23/B/ST7/01441.

Declarations

Conflict of Interest The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to this article.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which
permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
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Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Elzbieta Roszkowska holds the M.S. degree in computer science and

the Ph.D. and D.Sc. (habilitation) degrees in automation and robotics.
She is a professor at the Department of Cybernetics and Robotics,
at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (WUST), Poland,
involved in both research and teaching. Her professional interest is
in the event-based and hybrid control for complex systems with a
specific reference to automation and robotics applications. She coor-
dinated a number of research projects, the recent of which has been
nominated to the award granted by Polish Center of Intelligent Devel-
opment. As one of the creators of a new field of study at WUST -
Embedded Robotics, prof. Roszkowska acts currently as its director.
She also serves as expert in national and international bodies, includ-
ing European Commission and industry. Elzbieta Roszkowska is a
senior member of IEEE, worked two terms as an associate editor in
the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, and
has been a PC member of many international conferences.

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Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (2023) 33:425–453 453

Piotr Makowski-Czerski was born on August 8, 1996 in Zielona Gora,

Poland. He received the Automation and Robotics Engineer degree
and M.Sc degree in Embedded Robotics from the Wroclaw Univer-
sity of Science and Technology, Wroclaw, Poland, in 2019 and 2022
respectively. He is currently working as a robotics software engineer.
His main interests include control of a fleet of autonomous mobile
robots.

Łukasz Janiec holds a Master’s degree in Control Engineering and

Robotics from Wrocław University of Science and Technology, spe-
cializing in Robotics. He is currently a PhD Student at the Department
of Cybernetics and Robotics at the same university. His research inter-
ests focus on investigating the control of multiple mobile robot groups,
their coordination, collision avoidance, and deadlock prevention, as
well as the use of ROS 2 in robotic simulations and experiments.

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