Computing collision-free motions for a team of robots using formation and non-holonomic constraints

Abstract This paper focuses on the collision-free motion of a team of robots moving in a 2D environment with formation and non-holonomic constraints. With the proposed approach one can simultaneously control the formation of the team and generate a safe path for each individual robot. The computed paths satisfy the non-holonomic constraints, avoid collisions, and minimize the task-completion time. The proposed approach, which combines techniques from mathematical programming and CAD, consists of two main steps: first, a global team path is computed and, second, individual motions are determined for each unit. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated using several simulation experiments.