@INPROCEEDINGS{Berman_Kumar_09,
	author={S. Berman and V. Kumar},
	booktitle={Automation Science and Engineering, 2009. CASE 2009. IEEE International Conference on},
	title={Abstractions and algorithms for assembly tasks with large numbers of robots and parts},
	year={2009},
	pages={25-28},
	abstract={We present a decentralized, scalable approach to designing a reconfigurable manufacturing 
        system in which a swarm of robots assembles heterogeneous parts into target amounts of products. 
        The sequence of part assemblies is determined by interactions between robots in a decentralized manner 
        in real time. Our methodology is based on deriving a continuous abstraction of the system from chemical 
        reaction models and formulating the strategy as a problem of selecting rates of assembly and disassembly. 
        The rates are mapped onto probabilities that define stochastic control policies for individual robots, 
        which then produce the desired aggregate performance. We illustrate our approach using a physics-based 
        simulator with examples involving 15 robots and two types of final products.},
	keywords={assembling;decentralised control;industrial robots;manufacturing systems;stochastic systems;aggregate performance;assembly tasks;chemical reaction model;continuous abstraction;decentralized approach;heterogeneous parts;individual robots;part assemblies;reconfigurable manufacturing system;scalable approach;stochastic control policies;Assembly systems;Chemicals;Control system synthesis;Design automation;Physics;Production;Robot sensing systems;Robotic assembly;Robotics and automation;Scattering},
	doi={10.1109/COASE.2009.5234096},
	address = {Bangalore, INDIA},
	month={Aug},
}