Planning for multi-robot exploration with multiple objective utility functions

With the continued improvements in portable computing power and sensing systems it is becoming more common for groups of robots to cooperate to achieve a goal. When the robots are operating in an initially unknown environment, the most natural form of cooperation is multi-robot exploration. For many years frontier based approaches have been commonly used to assign target points for each of the robots in the group based on expected information gain and distance to travel. In this paper we present an expansion to these approaches allowing for the incorporation of multiple objective utility functions that allow adjustment of the exploration priorities both for the individual robots and the group as a whole. In addition, we discuss real world results of our algorithm including our first place finish at the Old Ram Shed Challenge and second place at the MAGIC2010 main competition.

Authors

• Jonathan Butzke
• Maxim Likhachev

Keywords

• Robot sensing systems
• Trajectory
• Mathematical model
• Equations
• Buildings
• Multi-robot Exploration
• Information Gain
• Robotic Group
• Maximum And Minimum
• Outdoor Environments
• F-value
• Types Of Regions
• Input Function
• Goal State
• Distance Map
• Range Of Sensors
• Bias Term
• Entire Trajectory
• Soft Constraints
• Central Planning
• Final Term
• Regional Bias
• Mapping Coverage
• Forward Simulation
• Occupancy Grid
• Exploration Algorithm
• Set Of Robots