Sharing control [multiple miniature robots]

Presents a framework for the operation and coordination of multiple miniature robots. Simple teleoperation can be useful in many situations, but the operator´s attention must be completely dedicated to controlling the robot. This may be difficult when the task requires the use of multiple robots. This article introduces a layered system that has been developed to facilitate multimodal control. This system includes user interfaces (UI) for teleoperation clients and robust sensor interpretation algorithms for autonomous control clients. A distributed software control architecture dynamically coordinates hardware resources and shares them between the various clients, allowing for simultaneous control of multiple robots.