W. Burgard and M. Moors and C. Stachniss and
F. Schneider
Coordinated Multi-Robot Exploration
IEEE Transactions on Robotics 21(3), 2005
Abstract
In this paper, we consider the problem of exploring an unknown environment
with a team of robots. As in singlerobot exploration the goal is to minimize
the overall exploration time. The key problem to be solved in the context of
multiple robots is to choose appropriate target points for the individual
robots so that they simultaneously explore different regions of the
environment. We present an approach for the coordination of multiple robots,
which simultaneously takes into account the cost of reaching a target point
and its utility. Whenever a target point is assigned to a specic robot, the
utility of the unexplored area visible from this target position is
reduced. In this way, different target locations are assigned to the
individual robots. We furthermore describe how our algorithm can be extended
to situations in which the communication range of the robots is limited. Our
technique has been implemented and tested extensively in real-world
experiments and simulation runs. The results demonstrate that our technique
effectively distributes the robots over the environment and allows them to
quickly accomplish their mission.
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Bibtex
@string{ieeetransrob = "IEEE Transactions on Robotics"}
@ARTICLE{burgardCoordinated,
AUTHOR = {W. Burgard and M. Moors and C. Stachniss and
F. Schneider},
TITLE = {Coordinated Multi-Robot Exploration},
JOURNAL = ieeetransrob,
YEAR = {2005},
Volume = {21},
number = {3},
pages = {376--378}
}