Learning Interaction-Aware Trajectory Predictions for Decentralized Multi-Robot Motion Planning in Dynamic Environments

TL;DR

This paper introduces a neural network-based decentralized trajectory prediction method for multi-robot motion planning that operates without communication, enabling scalable and collision-free navigation in dynamic environments.

Contribution

A novel RNN-based trajectory prediction model integrated into a decentralized MPC framework, eliminating the need for communication among robots.

Findings

Achieves performance comparable to centralized planners

Operates efficiently online for each robot

Validated with real-world quadrotor experiments

Abstract

This paper presents a data-driven decentralized trajectory optimization approach for multi-robot motion planning in dynamic environments. When navigating in a shared space, each robot needs accurate motion predictions of neighboring robots to achieve predictive collision avoidance. These motion predictions can be obtained among robots by sharing their future planned trajectories with each other via communication. However, such communication may not be available nor reliable in practice. In this paper, we introduce a novel trajectory prediction model based on recurrent neural networks (RNN) that can learn multi-robot motion behaviors from demonstrated trajectories generated using a centralized sequential planner. The learned model can run efficiently online for each robot and provide interaction-aware trajectory predictions of its neighbors based on observations of their history states. We then incorporate the trajectory prediction model into a decentralized model predictive control (MPC) framework for multi-robot collision avoidance. Simulation results show that our decentralized approach can achieve a comparable level of performance to a centralized planner while being communication-free and scalable to a large number of robots. We also validate our approach with a team of quadrotors in real-world experiments.