2020/04/15 by Aravind Preshant Premkumar, Kevin Yu, Premkumar, Aravind Preshant +3
Computer Science · Engineering · #Optimization and Search Problems #Machine Learning and Algorithms #Robotics and Sensor-Based Localization
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2004.06856
We present an algorithm to explore an orthogonal polygon using a team of p robots. This algorithm combines ideas from information-theoretic exploration algorithms and computational geometry based exploration algorithms. We show that the exploration time of our algorithm is competitive (as a function of p) with respect to the offline optimal exploration algorithm. The algorithm is based on a single-robot polygon exploration algorithm, a tree exploration algorithm for higher level planning and a submodular orienteering algorithm for lower level planning. We discuss how this strategy can be adapted to real-world settings to deal with noisy sensors. In addition to theoretical analysis, we investigate the performance of our algorithm through simulations for multiple robots and experiments with a single robot.