A Real-Time Rescheduling Algorithm for Multi-robot Plan Execution

TL;DR

This paper introduces Switchable-Edge Search (SES), an A*-style algorithm for real-time rescheduling of multi-robot plans, optimizing passing orders to improve efficiency during execution delays.

Contribution

The paper presents SES, a novel optimal rescheduling algorithm for multi-robot plan execution, with proven optimality and significant efficiency improvements over baselines.

Findings

SES finds optimal passing orders in under 1 second for small problems.

SES runs up to 4 times faster than baseline methods on large problems.

The algorithm is effective for real-time replanning in multi-robot systems.

Abstract

One area of research in multi-agent path finding is to determine how replanning can be efficiently achieved in the case of agents being delayed during execution. One option is to reschedule the passing order of agents, i.e., the sequence in which agents visit the same location. In response, we propose Switchable-Edge Search (SES), an A*-style algorithm designed to find optimal passing orders. We prove the optimality of SES and evaluate its efficiency via simulations. The best variant of SES takes less than 1 second for small- and medium-sized problems and runs up to 4 times faster than baselines for large-sized problems.