Energy constrained multi-robot sensor-based coverage path planning using capacitated arc routing approach

Abstract

Multi-robot sensor-based coverage path planning requires every point given in the workspace has to be covered at least by a sensor of a robot in the robot team. In this study, a novel algorithm was proposed for the sensor-based coverage of narrow environments by considering energy capacities of the robots. For this purpose, the environment was modeled by a Generalized Voronoi diagram-based graph to guarantee complete sensor-based coverage. Then, depending on the required arc set, a complete coverage route was created by using the Chinese Postman Problem or the Rural Postman Problem, and this route was partitioned among robots by considering energy capacities. Route partitioning was realized by modifying the Ulusoy partitioning algorithm which has polynomial complexity. This modification handles two different energy consumptions of mobile robots during sensor-based coverage, which was not considered before. The developed algorithm was coded in C++ and implemented on P3-DX mobile robots both in laboratory and in MobileSim simulation environments. It was shown that the convenient routes for energy constrained multi-robots could be generated by using the proposed algorithm in less than 1 s.