Coordinated execution of trajectories by multiple mobile robots

Describes an algorithm for collision avoidance between multiple mobile robots. As robots actually exchange information, algorithms are based on two hypotheses: (i) the working space is decomposed into cells and a limited number of robots is affected to each cell-thus a robot exchanges information only with robots in its vicinity and (ii) the trajectory of a robot is decomposed into sections-thus robots exchange only relevant information among themselves. A pipeline algorithm is proposed where a robot computes collisions with other robots on the section S/sub j+1/ while the it moves along the section S/sub j/. These algorithms are fully integrated in a more general architecture for mobile robots. Examples are described to show the interest of this approach.<>