Navigating Multiple Mobile Robots without Direct Communication

Abstract

A bulk of research is being done for the autonomous navigation of a mobile robot. Multirobot motion planning techniques often assume a direct communication among the robots, which makes them practically unusable. Similarly, approaches assuming the robot moving amid humans assume cooperation of humans, which may not be the case if the human is replaced by a robot. In this paper, a deliberative planning at the higher level with a new cell decomposition technique is presented, along with a reactive planning technique at the finer level, which uses fuzzy logic. Coordination among the robots in the absence of direct communication and knowledge of other robot's intent is a complex research question, which is solved using a simple fuzzy-based modeling. Experimental results show that the multiple robots maintain comfortable distances from the obstacles, navigate by near optimal paths, can easily escape previously unseen obstacles, and coordinate with each other to avoid collision as well as maintain a large separation. This work displays a simple and easy to interpret system for solving complex coordination problem in multirobotics. C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.