ACS-PRM: Adaptive Cross Sampling Based Probabilistic Roadmap for Multi-robot Motion Planning

In this paper we present a novel approach to multi-robot motion planning by using a probabilistic roadmap (PRM) based on adaptive cross sampling (ACS). The proposed approach, we call ACS-PRM, consists of three steps, which are C-space sampling, roadmap building and motion planning. Firstly, a sufficient number of points should be generated in C-space on an occupancy grid map by using an adaptive cross sampling method. Secondly, a roadmap should be built while the potential targets and milestones are extracted by post-processing the result of sampling. Finally, the motion of robots should be planned by querying the constructed roadmap. In contrast to previous approaches, our ACS-PRM approach is designed to plan separate kinematic paths for multiple robots to minimize the problem of congestion and collision in an effective way so as to improve the planning efficiency. Our approach has been implemented and evaluated in simulation. The experimental results demonstrate the total planning time can be significantly reduced by our ACS-PRM approach compared with previous approaches.

[1]  Sebastian Thrun,et al.  Learning Metric-Topological Maps for Indoor Mobile Robot Navigation , 1998, Artif. Intell..

[2]  Dieter Fox,et al.  Voronoi Random Fields: Extracting Topological Structure of Indoor Environments via Place Labeling , 2007, IJCAI.

[3]  Javier Minguez,et al.  Nearness diagram (ND) navigation: collision avoidance in troublesome scenarios , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation.

[4]  Iwan Ulrich,et al.  VFH+: reliable obstacle avoidance for fast mobile robots , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146).

[5]  B. Faverjon,et al.  Probabilistic Roadmaps for Path Planning in High-Dimensional Con(cid:12)guration Spaces , 1996 .

[6]  Daniel Vallejo,et al.  OBPRM: an obstacle-based PRM for 3D workspaces , 1998 .

[7]  Mark H. Overmars,et al.  Coordinated motion planning for multiple car-like robots using probabilistic roadmaps , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[8]  Zhi Yan,et al.  Multi-robot heuristic goods transportation , 2012, 2012 6th IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems.

[9]  Nicholas Roy,et al.  Topological mapping using spectral clustering and classification , 2007, 2007 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[10]  Zhi Yan,et al.  Sampling-Based Multi-Robot Exploration , 2010, ISR/ROBOTIK.

[11]  Agusti Solanas,et al.  Coordinated multi-robot exploration through unsupervised clustering of unknown space , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).

[12]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Collaborative multi-robot exploration , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).

[13]  Anthony Stentz,et al.  Optimal and efficient path planning for partially-known environments , 1994, Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[14]  Paul Levi,et al.  Cooperative Multi-Robot Path Planning by Heuristic Priority Adjustment , 2006, 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[15]  Jean-Claude Latombe,et al.  Robot motion planning , 1970, The Kluwer international series in engineering and computer science.

[16]  Michael R. M. Jenkin,et al.  A taxonomy for multi-agent robotics , 1996, Auton. Robots.

[17]  Michael Beetz,et al.  Multi-robot path planning for dynamic environments: a case study , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Expanding the Societal Role of Robotics in the the Next Millennium (Cat. No.01CH37180).

[18]  Benjamin Kuipers,et al.  Towards Autonomous Topological Place Detection Using the Extended Voronoi Graph , 2005, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[19]  Richard T. Vaughan,et al.  The Player/Stage Project: Tools for Multi-Robot and Distributed Sensor Systems , 2003 .

[20]  Alex Fukunaga,et al.  Cooperative mobile robotics: antecedents and directions , 1995 .

[21]  Nancy M. Amato,et al.  MAPRM: a probabilistic roadmap planner with sampling on the medial axis of the free space , 1999, Proceedings 1999 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.99CH36288C).

[22]  Peter Norvig,et al.  Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach , 1995 .

[23]  Ben J. A. Kröse,et al.  Hierarchical map building and planning based on graph partitioning , 2006, Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006..

[24]  Nicolas Jouandeau.  Algorithmique de la planification de mouvement probabiliste pour un robot mobile. (Probabilistic motion planning algorithms for a mobile robot) , 2004 .

[25]  Nils J. Nilsson,et al.  A Formal Basis for the Heuristic Determination of Minimum Cost Paths , 1968, IEEE Trans. Syst. Sci. Cybern..

[26]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Coordinated multi-robot exploration using a segmentation of the environment , 2008, 2008 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[27]  Christopher M. Clark,et al.  Probabilistic Road Map sampling strategies for multi-robot motion planning , 2005, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[28]  Peter Norvig,et al.  Artificial intelligence - a modern approach, 2nd Edition , 2003, Prentice Hall series in artificial intelligence.

[29]  Nancy M. Amato,et al.  Randomized motion planning for car-like robots with C-PRM , 2001, Proceedings 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Expanding the Societal Role of Robotics in the the Next Millennium (Cat. No.01CH37180).

[30]  Maja J. Mataric,et al.  Sold!: auction methods for multirobot coordination , 2002, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[31]  Dirk Schulz,et al.  A probabilistic approach to coordinated multi-robot indoor surveillance , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[32]  Mitul Saha,et al.  Multi-Robot Motion Planning by Incremental Coordination , 2006, 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.