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Published April 2005 | Published
Book Section - Chapter Open

A Coverage Algorithm for Multi-robot Boundary Inspection

Abstract

This paper introduces the multi-robot boundary coverage problem, wherein a group of k robots must inspect every point on the boundary of a 2-dimensional test environment. Using a simplified sensor model, this inspection problem is converted to an equivalent graph representation. In this representation, the coverage problem can be posed as the k- Rural Postman Problem (kRPP). We present a constructive heuristic which finds a solution to the kRPP, then use that solution to plan the robots' inspection routes. These routes provide complete coverage of the boundary and also balance the inspection load across the k robots. Simulations illustrate the algorithm's performance and characteristics.

Additional Information

© 2005 IEEE. Issue Date: 18-22 April 2005. Date of Current Version: 10 January 2006. This work has been supported by a National Science Foundation fellowship, a grant from NASA Glenn, and by NSF grants NSF-0428075 and NSF-0325017. The authors would like thank Elon Rimon and Eric Klavins for valuable discussions regarding graph-based approaches to multi-robot coverage and Howie Choset for the use of his planar GVG construction software, which was the basis for the graph construction step in our simulations.

Attached Files

Published - Easton2005p95222008_Ieee_International_Conference_On_Robotics_And_Automation_Vols_1-9.pdf

Files

Easton2005p95222008_Ieee_International_Conference_On_Robotics_And_Automation_Vols_1-9.pdf

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023