BSA: A Complete Coverage Algorithm

• Published in: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation pp. 2040 - 2044
• Main Authors: Gonzalez, E., Alvarez, O., Diaz, Y., Parra, C., Bustacara, C.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2005
• Subjects: Algorithm design and analysis; Collaborative work; Coverage Algorithm; Filling; Mobile robots; Motion control; Orbital robotics; Partitioning algorithms; Region Filling; Robotics and automation; Service robots; Spirals
• ISBN: 078038914X; 9780780389144
• ISSN: 1050-4729
• DOI: 10.1109/ROBOT.2005.1570413

The Backtracking Spiral Algorithm (BSA) is a coverage strategy for mobile robots based on the use of spiral filling paths; in order to assure the completeness, unvisited regions are marked and covered by backtracking mechanism. The BSA basic algorithm is designed to work in an environment modeled by a coarse-grain grid. BSA has been extended to cover, not only the free cells, but also the partially occupied ones. In this paper, the concepts and algorithms used to extend BSA are introduced. The ideas used to extend BSA are generic, thus a similar approach can be used to extend most of the grid-based coverage algorithms. Finally, some simulation results that demonstrate that BSA performs a complete coverage are presented.