The Robotics Institute

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute

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Abstract

We introduce a new algorithm to cover an unknown space with a homogeneous team of circular mobile robots. Our approach is based on a single robot coverage algorithm, a boustrophedon approach, which divides the target two-dimensional space into regions called cells, each of which can be covered with simple back and forth motions. Single robot coverage is then achieved by ensuring that the robot visits each cell. The new multi-robot coverage algorithm uses the same planar cell-based approach as the single robot approach, but also prescribes the methods by which multiple robots cover a cell, teams are allocated among cells, and sub-teams of robots share information in a minimalistic manner. The advantage of this method is that planning occurs in a two dimensional configuration space for a team of n robots, bypassing the need to plan in a 2n dimensional configuration space. The approach is semi-decentralized: robot teams cover the space independent of each other, but robots within a team communicate state and share information.

Keywords

Multi-robot coverage, sensor-based planning, exact cellular decomposition, boustrophedon decomposition

Notes

Associated Lab(s) / Group(s): Biorobotics

Number of pages: 7

Text Reference

DeWitt Talmadge Latimer, Siddhartha Srinivasa, Vincent Lee Shue, Samuel Sonne, Howie Choset, and Aaron Hurst, "Towards sensor based coverage with robot teams," Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA '02), May, 2002, pp. 961 - 967.

BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Latimer_2002_3947,
   author = "DeWitt Talmadge Latimer and Siddhartha Srinivasa and Vincent Lee Shue and Samuel Sonne and Howie Choset and Aaron Hurst",
   title = "Towards sensor based coverage with robot teams",
   booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA '02)",
   pages = "961 - 967",
   publisher = "IEEE",
   month = "May",
   year = "2002",
   volume = "1",
}

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