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arXiv · 2407.07409

Distributed multi-robot potential-field-based exploration with submap-based mapping and noise-augmented strategy

Khattiya Pongsirijinda·Zhiqiang Cao·Kaushik Bhowmik·Muhammad Shalihan·Billy Pik Lik Lau·Ran Liu·Chau Yuen·U-Xuan Tan
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Abstract

Multi-robot collaboration has become a needed component in unknown environment exploration due to its ability to accomplish various challenging situations. Potential-field-based methods are widely used for autonomous exploration because of their high efficiency and low travel cost. However, exploration speed and collaboration ability are still challenging topics. Therefore, we propose a Distributed Multi-Robot Potential-Field-Based Exploration (DMPF-Explore). In particular, we first present a Distributed Submap-Based Multi-Robot Collaborative Mapping Method (DSMC-Map), which can efficiently estimate the robot trajectories and construct the global map by merging the local maps from each robot. Second, we introduce a Potential-Field-Based Exploration Strategy Augmented with Modified Wave-Front Distance and Colored Noises (MWF-CN), in which the accessible frontier neighborhood is extended, and the colored noise provokes the enhancement of exploration performance. The proposed exploration method is deployed for simulation and real-world scenarios. The results show that our approach outperforms the existing ones regarding exploration speed and collaboration ability.

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Khattiya Pongsirijinda, Zhiqiang Cao, Kaushik Bhowmik, Muhammad Shalihan, Billy Pik Lik Lau, Ran Liu, Chau Yuen, U-Xuan Tan. 2024-07-10. Distributed multi-robot potential-field-based exploration with submap-based mapping and noise-augmented strategy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2024.104752

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