Planning optimal paths for multiple robots on graphs

Abstract

In this paper, we study the problem of optimal multi-robot path planning (MPP) on graphs. We propose two multiflow based integer linear programming (ILP) models that compute minimum last arrival time and minimum total distance solutions for our MPP formulation, respectively. The resulting algorithms from these ILP models are complete and guaranteed to yield true optimal solutions. In addition, our flexible framework can easily accommodate other variants of the MPP problem. Focusing on the time optimal algorithm, we evaluate its performance, both as a stand alone algorithm and as a generic heuristic for quickly solving large problem instances. Computational results confirm the effectiveness of our method.