Coordinated Selection and Timing of Multiple Trajectories of Discretely Mobile Robots

Description

The paper addresses the multi-agent path planning (MPP) of mobile agents with multiple goals taking into consideration the kinematic constraints of each agent. The "Swing and Dock" (SaD) robotic system being discussed uses discrete locomotion, where agents swing around fixed pins and dock with their mounting legs to realize displacement from one point to another. The system was developed as a subsystem for mobile robotic fixture (SwarmItFix). Previous work dealt with MPP for SaD agents using the concept of extended temporal graph with Integer Linear Programming (ILP) based formulations. The approach discretized time into unit steps, whereas in reality, the agents are constrained by velocity limits. Hence, a real-time schedule is required to accurately plan the agent movement in a working scenario. We utilize the concept of simple temporal network and extend our ILP formulations to model the velocity kinematic constraints. The mathematical formulations are implemented and tested using a GUROBI solver. Computational results display the effectiveness of the approach.

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