A Path Planning Strategy for Multi-Robot Moving with Path-Priority Order Based on a Generalized Voronoi Diagram

Abstract

This paper proposes a new path planning strategy called the navigation strategy with path priority (NSPP) for multiple robots moving in a large flat space. In the space, there may be some static or/and dynamic obstacles. Suppose we have the path-priority order for each robot, then this article aims to find an efficient path for each robot from its starting point to its target point without any collision. Here, a generalized Voronoi diagram (GVD) is used to perform the map division based on each robot’s path-priority order, and the proposed NSPP is used to do the path planning for the robots in the space. This NSPP can be applied to any number of robots. At last, there are several simulations with a different number of robots in a circular or rectangular space to be shown that the proposed method can complete the task effectively and has better performance in average trajectory length than those by using the benchmark methods of the shortest distance algorithm (SDA) and reciprocal orientation algorithm (ROA).