Speed and Density Planning for a Speed-Constrained Robot Swarm Through a Virtual Tube

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel planning method for speed-constrained robot swarms that uses virtual tubes with variable widths, optimizing speed and density for safe and efficient navigation in complex environments.

Contribution

It presents a global information-based approach to plan virtual tubes with varying widths, enabling safe and efficient traversal of narrow spaces by robot swarms.

Findings

Improved safety during navigation in complex environments.

Enhanced efficiency in passing through narrow spaces.

Validated through simulations and real-world experiments.

Abstract

The planning and control of a robot swarm in a complex environment have attracted increasing attention. To this end, the idea of virtual tubes has been taken up in our previous work. Specifically, a virtual tube with varying widths has been planned to avoid collisions with obstacles in a complex environment. Based on the planned virtual tube for a large number of speed-constrained robots, the average forward speed and density along the virtual tube are further planned in this paper to ensure safety and improve efficiency. Compared with the existing methods, the proposed method is based on global information and can be applied to traversing narrow spaces for speed-constrained robot swarms. Numerical simulations and experiments are conducted to show that the safety and efficiency of the passing-through process are improved. A video about simulations and experiments is available on https://youtu.be/lJHdMQMqSpc.