Complete-Coverage Path Planning Algorithm of Multiple Mobile Robots Based on Reliability Functions

Abstract

The multi-robot complete coverage problem in unknown area refers to that multi-robots obtain environment information through their sensors in unknown environment, and cooperate with each other to search the specific task area. For the complete-coverage path planning of multiple mobile robots, an algorithm based on grid reliability function was proposed. Firstly, positional reliability function value is calculated according to the information of the environment, the obstacles, covered grids and uncovered grids; Secondly, in order to reduce the path repetition rate and improve the coverage efficiency, the directional reliability function is introduced to adjust the grid function values and guides robots to uncovered grid efficiently; Thirdly, the robots make sure that there will be no excessive proximity between robots while robots cover the area, the density between robots is measured by dense reliability function value. In the final session, by compared with bio-inspired neural network algorithm in two scenarios: box simulation and simulated real environment in gazebo world, the algorithm proposed in this paper was verified to own lower repetition rate and shorter trajectory length.