Optimizing Space Utilization for More Effective Multi-Robot Path Planning

TL;DR

This paper introduces Space Utilization Optimization (SUO) as a heuristic to improve multi-robot path planning by reducing congestion and computation time, leading to more efficient and optimal solutions in various scenarios.

Contribution

It presents a new decentralized heuristic, SU-I, that enhances multi-robot path planning by preserving path optimality and significantly reducing conflicts and computation time.

Findings

SU-I reduces congestion in multi-robot path planning.

Integration of SU-I leads to faster planning with fewer conflicts.

Sizable solution quality improvements in diverse scenarios.

Abstract

We perform a systematic exploration of the principle of Space Utilization Optimization (SUO) as a heuristic for planning better individual paths in a decoupled multi-robot path planner, with applications to both one-shot and life-long multi-robot path planning problems. We show that the decentralized heuristic set, SU-I, preserves single path optimality and significantly reduces congestion that naturally happens when many paths are planned without coordination. Integration of SU-I into complete planners brings dramatic reductions in computation time due to the significantly reduced number of conflicts and leads to sizable solution optimality gains in diverse evaluation scenarios with medium and large maps, for both one-shot and life-long problem settings.