Multi-robot collision avoidance with localization uncertainty

This paper describes a multi-robot collision avoidance system based on the velocity obstacle paradigm. In contrast to previous approaches, we alleviate the strong requirement for perfect sensing (i.e. global positioning) using Adaptive Monte-Carlo Localization on a per-agent level. While such methods as Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance guarantee local collision-free motion for a large number of robots, given perfect knowledge of positions and speeds, a realistic implementation requires further extensions to deal with inaccurate localization and message passing delays. The presented algorithm bounds the error introduced by localization and combines the computation for collision-free motion with localization uncertainty. We provide an open source implementation using the Robot Operating System (ROS). The system is tested and evaluated with up to eight robots in simulation and on four differential drive robots in a real-world situation.

[1]  Paolo Fiorini,et al.  Motion Planning in Dynamic Environments Using Velocity Obstacles , 1998, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[2]  Dieter Fox,et al.  KLD-Sampling: Adaptive Particle Filters , 2001, NIPS.

[3]  Dieter Fox,et al.  Adapting the Sample Size in Particle Filters Through KLD-Sampling , 2003, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[4]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Probabilistic Robotics (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents) , 2005 .

[5]  Erwin Prassler,et al.  Coordinating the Motion of a Human and a Robot in a Crowded, Natural Environment , 2005 .

[6]  Dinesh Manocha,et al.  Reciprocal Velocity Obstacles for real-time multi-agent navigation , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[7]  Richard Vaughan,et al.  Massively multi-robot simulation in stage , 2008, Swarm Intelligence.

[8]  Dinesh Manocha,et al.  Independent navigation of multiple mobile robots with hybrid reciprocal velocity obstacles , 2009, 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[9]  Dinesh Manocha,et al.  Reciprocal n-Body Collision Avoidance , 2011, ISRR.

[10]  Morgan Quigley,et al.  ROS: an open-source Robot Operating System , 2009, ICRA 2009.

[11]  Dinesh Manocha,et al.  Smooth and collision-free navigation for multiple robots under differential-drive constraints , 2010, 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[12]  Paul A. Beardsley,et al.  Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance for Multiple Non-Holonomic Robots , 2010, DARS.