With this project we aim to develop an autonomous system able to perform surveillance tasks in a structured environment. The system as a whole will be made up of several mobile platforms (agents). Each of them will be equipped with an active vision system, an odometry system and communication links enabling the platforms to communicate among themselves. As a whole the full system (including all the platforms) will have a high degree of autonomy. Each of the platforms will also be autonomous in terms of the navigation and surveillance tasks. The system will be designed to operate off-hours in structured environments such as supermarkets, military installations, public buildings, power plants, etc.. The implication of its use during off-hours is that the primary condition for the detection of an intruder will be the occurrence of motion. Each one of the agents will perform the surveillance tasks based on the active vision system. Navigation will also be performed based on the active vision system and on the odometry system. The environment map will be known a priori and landmarks both natural and artificial will be used for localization. Both navigation and surveillance do not have to be performed with accuracy. Indeed each agent will only be concerned with not repeating its trajectory so that all the map area is covered periodically. Agents will have to cooperate so that they do not survey the same area simultaneously. Therefore there will be communication links enabling the agents to inform one another from their activities. Cooperation will occur at several levels namely to ensure that the agents survey different areas, to avoid collisions and to enable the execution of common taks such as pursuing an intruder.
We propose to demonstrate this system by using two mobile and active agents that cooperate in a structured environment.