A Distributed Heuristic for Energy-Efficient Multirobot Multiplace Rendezvous

• Published in: IEEE transactions on robotics Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 130 - 135
• Main Authors: Litus, Y., Zebrowski, P., Vaughan, R.T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.02.2009; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Animals; Applied sciences; Approximation; Computer science; control theory; systems; Control theory. Systems; Controllers; Cost function; Energy efficiency; Euclidean distance; Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Heuristic; Mathematical analysis; Mobile robot motion planning; Mobile robots; Motion planning; Multirobot systems; Multirobots; Physics; Rendezvous; Robot motion; Robotics; Robots; Service robots; Simulation; Size control; Solid dynamics (ballistics, collision, multibody system, stabilization...); Solid mechanics; Mobile robot motion planning; multirobot systems; Moving robot; Solid dynamic; Linear time; Fork join problem; Global solution; Robotics; Bounded solution; Multiagent system; Heuristic method; Planning; Motion control
• ISSN: 1552-3098; 1941-0468
• DOI: 10.1109/TRO.2008.2007459

We consider the problem of finding a set of trajectories for a heterogeneous group of mobile robots, such that a single service robot can rendezvous with every other member of the team in a prescribed order, and the total travel cost is minimized. We present a simple heuristic controller that runs independently on each robot, yet is guaranteed to achieve an approximation to global solution in bounded time linear in population size. Simulation experiments empirically show that the method finds approximated solutions of near-optimal quality on average.