Multi-robot Cooperative Patrol Path Planning Method under Road Network Constraints

Abstract

Multi-robot systems have great advantages and wide applications in the fields of ground reconnaissance, environmental monitoring, and key area patrols. However, in the field of multi-robot collaboration, it is difficult to take into account the patrol efficiency and path privacy simultaneously, especially when any intelligent intruders happen. To conquer the above difficulty, path randomness is proposed as a criterion to establish a multi-robot cooperative path planning model based on idle time dispersion, so as the path information privacy and security in the patrol process can be protected. In order to get the solution of the model, the index of idle time dispersion is introduced to get a tailored ant colony algorithm. Finally, patrol paths of multi mobile robots with high security are obtained. Several simulations in the simple road network and complex road network are conducted to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.