This paper presents a novel technique for analyzing and designing local communication systems for distributed mobile robotic systems (DMRS). Our goal is to provide an analysis-base guideline for designing local communication systems to efficiently transmit task information to the appropriate robots. In this paper, we propose a layered methodology, i. e. , design from spatial and temporal aspects based on analysis of information diffusion by local communication between robots. The task environment is classified so that each analysis and design is applied in a systematic way. The spatial design gives the optimal communication area for minimizing transmission time for various cooperative tasks. In the temporal design, we derive the information announcing time to avoid excessive information diffusion. The designed local communication is evaluated in comparison with global communication. Finally, we performed simulations and experiments to demonstrate that the analysis and design technique is effective for constructing an efficient local communication system.

Designing control and robotic systems as autonomous decentralized systems introduces a new degree of flexibility in the manufacturing and in the application of such systems. This flexibility is required for the systems to work in environments that are not totally predictable and that can change dynamically. In this paper, we present a new concept for real-time communication that supports this flexibility while still preserving real-time guarantees for hard real-time communication. The concept is designed to work on multiple-access busses. In particular, we consider its application on wireless local area networks and field-busses. The concept addresses requirements of hard-real time, soft real-time and non real-time communication. For this, we extend the TDMA (time- division multiple-access) approach for time-triggered hard-real time communication by the concept of shared channels that support event-triggered communication and coexist with hard real-time channels. A first implementation of concept has been carried out in the context of the CAN-bus.