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Path planning for robotic teams based on LTL specifications and Petri net models

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Abstract

This research proposes an automatic strategy for planning a team of identical robots evolving in a known environment. The robots should satisfy a global task for the whole team, given in terms of a Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formula over predefined regions of interest. A Robot Motion Petri Net (RMPN) system is used for modeling the evolution of the robotic team in the environment, bringing the advantage of a fixed topology versus the number of robots, with respect to methods based on synchronous automaton products. The algorithmic method iterates the selection of an accepted run that satisfies the specification and the search for RMPN sequences of reachable markings that can produce desired observations. A Büchi automaton witnesses the advancement towards formula fulfillment, and at the core of our methods are three Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulations that yield firing sequences and markings of RMPN model. The cost functions of these formulations reduce the number of robot synchronizations and induce collision avoidance. Simulation examples support the computational feasibility of the proposed method.

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Notes

  1. Such final synchronizations are needed in some cases of LTL formulas, e.g. requiring synchronous visits to some disjoint regions (Kloetzer et al. 2011).

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Acknowledgments

The first author acknowledges the support of Ministry of Research and Innovation (Romania) under CNCS-UEFISCDI grant PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0737. The second author acknowledges the support of the Aragonese Government (Spain) under grant T94 DisCo group, and of University of Zaragoza under grant JIUZ-2018-TEC-10.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Automatic Control and Applied Informatics, “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania

    Marius Kloetzer

  2. Aragón Institute of Engineering Research (I3A), University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain

    Cristian Mahulea

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  1. Marius Kloetzer
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  2. Cristian Mahulea
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Correspondence to Marius Kloetzer.

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This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Smart Manufacturing - A New DES Frontier

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Kloetzer, M., Mahulea, C. Path planning for robotic teams based on LTL specifications and Petri net models. Discrete Event Dyn Syst 30, 55–79 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10626-019-00300-1

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