Action selection within the context of a robotic colony

Preparation of planetary surface sites prior to a manned mission can be accomplished through the use of a robotic colony. The tasks of such a colony would include habitat deployment, setup of in-situ fuel and oxygen production plants, and beaconed road placement. The colony will have to possess a great deal of autonomy for this ambitious list. BISMARC (Biologically Inspired System for Map-based Autonomous Rover Control) is a behavior based system for the control of multiple rovers on planetary surfaces. During the past few years the system has performed well in multiple cache retrieval simulations, and a certain degree of fault tolerance has been included in the design. In this paper we address the extensions to BISMARC that would be necessary for a robotic colony application. These extensions include a wider array of behaviors, better communication and mapping capabilities, and fault tolerance shared by the colony. The results of some simulations for habitat site preparation are reported.