Distributed path planning for multi-robot teams based on Artificial Bee Colony

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a distributed planner method for multi-robot systems based on Swarm Intelligence. The method uses a distributed version of a priority based planner to compute coordinated motions of multiple robots in parallel. The Artificial Bee Colony algorithm is used to find velocity profiles that avoid collisions between robots and that minimize the time of the path execution. The proposed planner is tested in some transportation problems with scenarios as warehouses, offices, etc. We compare the proposed method to a classic priority method that uses the proposed coordination scheme to observe the advantages of our distributed method.