Any-com collision checking: Sharing certificates in decentralized multi-robot teams

• Published in: Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation pp. 563 - 570
• Main Authors: Otte, Michael, Bialkowski, Joshua, Frazzoli, Emilio
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.05.2014
• Subjects: Algorithm design and analysis; Collision avoidance; Complexity theory; Planning; Robot sensing systems; Safety
• ISSN: 1050-4729
• DOI: 10.1109/ICRA.2014.6906911

We present an any-com algorithm that enables a decentralized team of robots to share the work of collision checking while each robot independently calculates its own motion plan. In our method "safety-certificates" (i.e., bounds on the collision-free subspace around each collision-checked point [1]), are shared among the team so that all robots can benefit from their encoded knowledge. Future points drawn from within a certificate are guaranteed to be safe; therefore, sharing certificates among team members reduces collision checking for all robots. Experiments demonstrate that our algorithm scales well vs. both team size and vs. communication quality.