Virtual Region Based Multi-Robot Path Planning in an Unknown Occluded Environment

Abstract

This paper introduces an arbitrary-region based shape-control methodology for a swarm-robotics framework to conquer the traditional obstacle-avoidance problem. In this control approach, during the movement of a team of robots through an unknown occluded environment, a virtual boundary for the robotic crowd that could pass through even a very narrow passage, as a swarm, has been created based on the agents’/robots’ sensing information. The primary challenge is to force each and every agent to fit into the arbitrary boundary, thus created, so that they can form a swarm and eventually progress towards the goal while avoiding obstacles. Consequently, the process maximizes the inter-agent cohesion. Furthermore, the virtual region is subdivided into so-called cells designated by a non-overlapping circular geometry. The utmost endeavor is to make an agent place itself at the center of a circular cell and a mechanism has been devised, where each agent is duly attracted and eventually is resident at the center of each cell completely blanketing the entire virtual region. To place each agent inside the stipulated contour, a novel circle-packing algorithm has been proposed such that the contour is fitted with a number of identical circles. Finally, the simulation results along with hardware implementation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control technique.