Deployment Strategy for Mobile Robots with Energy and Timing Constraints

Mobile robots usually carry limited energy and have to accomplish their tasks before deadlines. Examples of these tasks include search and rescue, landmine detection, and carpet cleaning. Many researchers have been studying control, sensing, and coordination for these tasks. However, one major problem has not been fully addressed: the initial deployment of mobile robots. The deployment problem considers the number of robots needed and their initial locations. In this paper, we present a solution for the deployment problem when robots have limited energy and time to collectively accomplish coverage tasks. Simulation results show that our method uses 26% fewer robots comparing with two heuristics for covering the same size of area.

[1]  A. Barili,et al.  Energy-saving motion control for an autonomous mobile robot , 1995, 1995 Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics.

[2]  Howie Choset,et al.  Probabilistic methods for robotic landmine search , 2001, SPIE Optics East.

[3]  Matthew T. Mason,et al.  Rapid Prototyping of Small Robots , 2002 .

[4]  Maria L. Gini,et al.  Enlisting rangers and scouts for reconnaissance and surveillance , 2000, IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag..

[5]  Parameswaran Ramanathan,et al.  Sensor deployment strategy for target detection , 2002, WSNA '02.

[6]  Y. Charlie Hu,et al.  Energy-efficient motion planning for mobile robots , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.

[7]  Robert P. Goldman,et al.  Coordinated deployment of multiple, heterogeneous robots , 2000, Proceedings. 2000 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2000) (Cat. No.00CH37113).

[8]  Ruth Aylett,et al.  Robots: Bringing Intelligent Machines to Life , 2002 .

[9]  Anibal T. de Almeida,et al.  Energy efficiency improvements in electronic motors and drives , 2000 .

[10]  Y. Charlie Hu,et al.  Supporting many-to-one communication in mobile multi-robot ad hoc sensing networks , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.

[11]  John Anderson,et al.  Flexible binary space partitioning for robotic rescue , 2003, Proceedings 2003 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003) (Cat. No.03CH37453).

[12]  Y. Charlie Hu,et al.  Determining the fleet size of mobile robots with energy constraints , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).

[13]  Y. Charlie Hu,et al.  Energy-time-efficient adaptive dispatching algorithms for ant-like robot systems , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.