Push, Stop, and Replan: An Application of Pebble Motion on Graphs to Planning in Automated Warehouses

TL;DR

This paper adapts the pebble-motion on graphs algorithm to practical automated warehouse planning by relaxing movement constraints, demonstrating its applicability through experiments.

Contribution

It introduces modifications to the Push and Rotate algorithm to make it suitable for real-world warehouse robot planning.

Findings

Modified algorithm is applicable for warehouse planning

Relaxed constraints improve practical usability

Experimental results validate effectiveness

Abstract

The pebble-motion on graphs is a subcategory of multi-agent pathfinding problems dealing with moving multiple pebble-like objects from a node to a node in a graph with a constraint that only one pebble can occupy one node at a given time. Additionally, algorithms solving this problem assume that individual pebbles (robots) cannot move at the same time and their movement is discrete. These assumptions disqualify them from being directly used in practical applications, although they have otherwise nice theoretical properties. We present modifications of the Push and Rotate algorithm [1], which relax the presumptions mentioned above and demonstrate, through a set of experiments, that the modified algorithm is applicable for planning in automated warehouses.