A Hybrid Decentralized Coordinated Approach for Multi-Robot Exploration Task. (29th October 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mohamed, Khalil; El Shenawy, Ayman; Harb, Hany
• Is Part Of: Computer journal. Volume 62:Number 9(2019)
• Page Start: 1284
• Page End: 1300
• Publication Date: 2018-10-29
• Subjects: multi-robot systems -- multi-robot exploration -- HDec-POSMDPs -- task assignment -- centralized coordination -- decentralized coordination; Computers -- Periodicals; 005.1
• DOI: 10.1093/comjnl/bxy107
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0010-4620

Abstract

Abstract: Exploring the environment using multi-robot systems is a fundamental process that most automated applications depend on. This paper presents a hybrid decentralized task assignment approach based on Partially Observable Semi-Markov Decision Processes called HDec-POSMDPs, which are general models for multi-robot coordination and exploration problems in which robots can make their own decisions according to its local data with limited communication between the robot team. In this paper, a variety of multi-robot exploration algorithms and their comparison have been tackled. These algorithms, which have been taken into consideration, are dependent on different parameters. Collectively, there are five metrics maximize the total exploration percentage, minimize overall mission time, reduce the number of hops in the networked robots, reduce the energy consumed by each robot and minimize the number of turns in the path from the start pose cells to the target cells. Therefore, a team of identical mobile robots is used to perform coordination and exploration process in an unknown cell-based environment. The performance of the task depends on the strategy of coordination among the robots involved in the team. Therefore, the proposed approach is implemented, tested and evaluated in MRESim computer simulator, and its performance is compared with different coordinated exploration strategies for different environments and different team sizes. The experimental results demonstrate a good performance of the proposed approach compared to the four existing approaches.