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Path Planning for Swarms by Combining Probabilistic Roadmaps and Potential Fields

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Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 8069))

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Abstract

This paper combines probabilistic roadmaps with potential fields in order to enable a robotic swarm to effectively move to a desired destination while avoiding collisions with obstacles and each other. Potential fields provide the robots with local, reactive, behaviors that seek to keep the swarm moving in cohesion and away from the obstacles. The probabilistic roadmap provides global path planning which guides the swarm through a series of intermediate goals in order to effectively reach the desired destination. Random walks in combination with adjustments to the potential fields and intermediate goals are used to help stuck robots escape local minima. Experimental results provide promising validation on the efficiency and scalability of the proposed approach. Source code is made publicly available.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AJ, Scotland, UK

    Alex Wallar

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 20064, USA

    Erion Plaku

Authors
  1. Alex Wallar
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  2. Erion Plaku
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erion Plaku .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Ashutosh Natraj

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Stephen Cameron

  3. University of Bristol and the West of En, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Chris Melhuish

  4. Imperial College London Department of Electrical and Electronic, London, United Kingdom

    Mark Witkowski

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Wallar, A., Plaku, E. (2014). Path Planning for Swarms by Combining Probabilistic Roadmaps and Potential Fields. In: Natraj, A., Cameron, S., Melhuish, C., Witkowski, M. (eds) Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. TAROS 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8069. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43645-5_43

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43645-5_43

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-43644-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-43645-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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