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Multi-robot Map Exploration Based on Multiple Rapidly-Exploring Randomized Trees

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Abstract

A map is necessary for tasks such as path planning or localization, which are common to mobile robot navigation. However, a map may be unavailable if the environment in which a robot navigates is unknown. Creating a map requires an exploration algorithm. Such algorithms guide robots to boundaries that separate known portions of a map from the unknown portions. Such boundaries are known as frontiers. There are image processing-based algorithms that detect frontiers. The authors’ previous work uses two, i.e., local and global, rapidly exploring random trees (RRTs) for two-dimensional exploration using a single robot. The present work applies the above to a multiagent system with three robots. A market-based strategy is used to allocate exploration tasks to the robots. Results show that the developed exploration strategy successfully explores a map in a reasonable amount of time compared to image processing-based approaches, and also reduces the map exploration cost. This strategy is readily usable for three-dimensional exploration with drones. It is also shown that the usage of a local frontier detector along with a global frontier detector helps reduce exploration time compared to simply using a global frontier detector alone. As an outline to future work, the paper also shows an extension of the proposed approach towards three-dimensional mapping using a single robot.

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Availability of Data and Materials

Any data necessary for simulation of the 2D RRT-based exploration algorithm can be generated using the code mentioned below.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Department, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd, West Haven, CT, 06516, USA

    Shayok Mukhopadhyay

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, American University of Sharjah, P.O. Box 26666, Sharjah, UAE

    Shayok Mukhopadhyay

  3. Mechatronics Engineering graduate program, American University of Sharjah, P.O. Box 26666, Sharjah, UAE

    Hassan Umari & Koshish Koirala

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  1. Shayok Mukhopadhyay
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  2. Hassan Umari
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  3. Koshish Koirala
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Correspondence to Shayok Mukhopadhyay.

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Code Availability

The exploration algorithm developed is available at https://github.com/hasauino/rrt_exploration.

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Mukhopadhyay, S., Umari, H. & Koirala, K. Multi-robot Map Exploration Based on Multiple Rapidly-Exploring Randomized Trees. SN COMPUT. SCI. 5, 31 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-023-02193-2

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