Strategies for search and rescue multirobot system based on place/transition Petri nets and RFID distributed database

Due to their social influence, several areas research search and rescue field. Mobile robotics is one of them that analyzes and seeks more efficient solutions for search and rescue operations. Multirobot systems are considered to make the procedures more efficient and safe, both for the victim and for the crew. Petri nets are widely diffused for designing discrete events systems, such as networks and protocols, software modeling, workflow and business processes, supply chains and flexible manufacturing systems. Petri nets inside RFID distributed database, or PNRD, is a formal data structure, which relates Petri net with radio frequency identification components. It was initially designed for logistical and manufacturing processes, facilitating automatic monitoring and traceability of spurious events to objects identified by a tag and passing through pre-defined locations where the antennas and readers are installed. On the scope of search and rescue operations on trails and crossings, it is proposed to use a modified PNRD to assist in the traceability of users and, with that, direct the robots' local search in case of people disappearance. The environment is then analyzed, and it is comprised of heterogeneous robotic agents from the viewpoint of modeling agent behavior, embedding models in microcontrollers and monitoring the system's evolution. The initial experimental results of the proposed methodology are presented and analyzed.