2009 IEEE International Conference on
Systems, Man, and Cybernetics |
Abstract
This paper proposes a novel path planning method for cleaning task using multiple robots in large environment. To do so, we partition a given region into several small areas and plan the covering path which can completely cover these divided areas. Also, we allocate the planed areas to cleaning robots sequentially and generate the path which can move from an area to another area in the shortest time. For partitioning the given region into several small areas, the Virtual Door Algorithm is proposed, and for planning the moving path, the template-based approach is used. Also, the look-up table which uses the Dijkstra algorithm is generated for moving from an area to another area, and the Task Area Allocation Algorithm which allocates the divided areas to cleaning robots using this look-up table is proposed for complete coverage path planning in a given region. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our algorithms which can completely cover the given region regardless of the number of cleaning robots and verify the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms through computer simulations.