Information-based multi-agent exploration

Abstract

Deals with the problem of mapping an unknown environment by a team of robots. A discrete grid map of the environment is considered in which each cell is marked as free or not dependent on the possible presence of obstacles. The multi-agent exploration is performed by a team of autonomous robots which can communicate with each other and coordinate their actions. A new information based exploration heuristic that exploits the concepts of both information-gain and frontier is proposed. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the approach.