Title :
Multi-robot long-term persistent coverage with fuel constrained robots
Author :
Mitchell, Derek ; Corah, Micah ; Chakraborty, Nilanjan ; Sycara, Katia ; Michael, Nathan
Author_Institution :
Robot. Inst., Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Abstract :
In this paper, we present an algorithm to solve the Multi-Robot Persistent Coverage Problem (MRPCP). Here, we seek to compute a schedule that will allow a fleet of agents to visit all targets of a given set while maximizing the frequency of visitation and maintaining a sufficient fuel capacity by refueling at depots. We also present a heuristic method to allow us to compute bounded suboptimal results in real time. The results produced by our algorithm will allow a team of robots to efficiently cover a given set of targets or tasks persistently over long periods of time, even when the cost to transition between tasks is dynamic.
Keywords :
fuel economy; integer programming; linear programming; mobile robots; multi-robot systems; suboptimal control; MRPCP problem; agents fleet; bounded suboptimal analysis; dynamic tasks; fuel capacity maintenance; fuel constrained robots; heuristic method; mixed-integer linear program; multirobot long-term persistent coverage problem; refueling depots; robotic team; visitation frequency maximization; Fuels; Heuristic algorithms; Robots; Routing; Upper bound; Vehicle dynamics; Vehicles;
Conference_Titel :
Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2015 IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Seattle, WA
DOI :
10.1109/ICRA.2015.7139312