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Large scale operational areas often require multiple service robots for coverage and task parallelism. In such scenarios, each robot keeps its individual map of the environment and serves specific areas of the map at different times. We propose a knowledge sharing mechanism for multiple robots in which one robot can inform other robots about the changes in map, like path blockage, or new static obstacles, encountered at specific areas of the map. This symbiotic information sharing allows the robots to update remote areas of the map without having to explicitly navigate those areas, and plan efficient paths. A node representation of paths is presented for seamless sharing of blocked path information. The transience of obstacles is modeled to track obstacles which might have been removed. A lazy information update scheme is presented in which only relevant information affecting the current task is updated for efficiency. The advantages of the proposed method for path planning are discussed against traditional method with experimental results in both simulation and real environments.

The unmanned warehouse dispatching system of the ‘goods to people’ model uses a structure mainly based on a handling robot, which saves considerable manpower and improves the efficiency of the warehouse picking operation. However, the optimal performance of the scheduling system algorithm has high requirements. This study uses a deep Q-network (DQN) algorithm in a deep reinforcement learning algorithm, which combines the Q-learning algorithm, an empirical playback mechanism, and the volume-based technology of productive neural networks to generate target Q-values to solve the problem of multi-robot path planning. The aim of the Q-learning algorithm in deep reinforcement learning is to address two shortcomings of the robot path-planning problem: slow convergence and excessive randomness. Preceding the start of the algorithmic process, prior knowledge and prior rules are used to improve the DQN algorithm. Simulation results show that the improved DQN algorithm converges faster than the classic deep reinforcement learning algorithm and can more quickly learn the solutions to path-planning problems. This improves the efficiency of multi-robot path planning.

To complete a task consisting of a series of actions that involve human-robot interaction, it is necessary to plan a motion that considers each action individually as well as in relation to the following action. We then focus on the specific action of “approaching a group of people” in order to accurately obtain human data that is used to make the performance of tasks involving interactions with multiple people more smooth. The movement depends on the characteristics of the important sensors used for the task and on the placement of people at and around the destination. Considering the multiple tasks and placement of people, the pre-calculation of the destinations and paths is difficult. This paper thus presents a system of navigation that can accurately obtain human data based on sensor characteristics, task content, and real-time sensor data for processes involving human-robot interaction (HRI); this method does not navigate specifically toward a previously determined static point. Our goal was achieved by using a multimodal path planning based on integration of action modeling by considering both voice and image sensing of interacting people as well as obstacle avoidance. We experimentally verified our method by using a robot in a coffee shop environment.

This paper proposed a triangular inequality-based rewiring method for the rapidly exploring random tree (RRT)-Connect robot path-planning algorithm that guarantees the planning time compared to the RRT algorithm, to bring it closer to the optimum. To check the proposed algorithm’s performance, this paper compared the RRT and RRT-Connect algorithms in various environments through simulation. From these experimental results, the proposed algorithm shows both quicker planning time and shorter path length than the RRT algorithm and shorter path length than the RRT-Connect algorithm with a similar number of samples and planning time.

Numerous path-planning studies have been conducted in past decades due to the challenges of obtaining optimal solutions. This paper reviews multi-robot path-planning approaches and decision-making strategies and presents the path-planning algorithms for various types of robots, including aerial, ground, and underwater robots. The multi-robot path-planning approaches have been classified as classical approaches, heuristic algorithms, bio-inspired techniques, and artificial intelligence approaches. Bio-inspired techniques are the most employed approaches, and artificial intelligence approaches have gained more attention recently. The decision-making strategies mainly consist of centralized and decentralized approaches. The trend of the decision-making system is to move towards a decentralized planner. Finally, the new challenge in multi-robot path planning is proposed as fault tolerance, which is important for real-time operations.

The most important research area in robotics is navigation algorithms. Robot path planning (RPP) is the process of choosing the best route for a mobile robot to take before it moves. Finding an ideal or nearly ideal path is referred to as “path planning optimization.” Finding the best solution values that satisfy a single or a number of objectives, such as the shortest, smoothest, and safest path, is the goal. The objective of this study is to present an overview of navigation strategies for mobile robots that utilize three classical approaches, namely: the roadmap approach (RM), cell decomposition (CD), and artificial potential fields (APF), in addition to eleven heuristic approaches, including the genetic algorithm (GA), ant colony optimization (ACO), artificial bee colony (ABC), gray wolf optimization (GWO), shuffled frog-leaping algorithm (SFLA), whale optimization algorithm (WOA), bacterial foraging optimization (BFO), firefly (FF) algorithm, cuckoo search (CS), and bat algorithm (BA), which may be used in various environmental situations. Multiple issues, including dynamic goals, static and dynamic environments, multiple robots, real-time simulation, kinematic analysis, and hybrid algorithms, are addressed in a different set of articles presented in this study. A discussion, as well as thorough tables and charts, will be presented at the end of this work to help readers understand what types of strategies for path planning are developed for use in a wide range of ecological contexts. Therefore, this work’s main contribution is that it provides a broad view of robot path planning, which will make it easier for scientists to study the topic in the near future.

Optimum path planning is a fundamental necessity for the successful functioning of a mobile robot in industrial applications. This research work investigates the application of the artificial bee colony (ABC) approach, probabilistic roadmap (PRM) method, and evolutionary programming (EP) algorithm to tackle the issue of single and multi-robot path planning in partially known or unknown industrial complex environments. Conventional techniques depend on external factors such as delay of information from one bee's stage to another for selecting neighbour food points. Due to this, its efficiency is comparatively low and might result in longer runtimes. To address these challenges, a novel hybrid framework based on ABC-PRM-EP has been introduced. Firstly, a suboptimal initial feasible path is attained by a new framework (ABC-PRM) within the mobile robot sensor detection range. Then, EP performs refinement of that attained suboptimal path to provide a short and optimum path. Also, a multi-robot collaboration strategy has been introduced based on the concept of hold-up. A number of comparative studies have been conducted in three different test scenarios with different complexity to validate the proposed framework efficiency and performance. Different performance indices such as path length (m), smoothness (rad), collision safety value, success rate, processing time (s), and convergence speed have been measured to validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework. The comparative analysis obtained from these test scenarios indicates that the proposed framework outperforms conventional ABC, ABC-EP and HPSO-GWO-EA, while performing path planning.

This paper proposes a novel two-layer framework based on conflict-based search and regional divisions to improve the efficiency of multi-robot path planning. The high-level layer targets the reduction of conflicts and deadlocks, while the low-level layer is responsible for actual path planning. Distinct from previous dual-level search frameworks, the novelties of this work are (1) subdivision of planning regions for each robot to decrease the number of conflicts encountered during planning; (2) consideration of the number of robots in the region during planning in the node expansion stage of A*, and (3) formal proof demonstrating the nonzero probability of the proposed method in obtaining a solution, along with providing the upper bound of the solution in a special case. Experimental comparisons with Enhanced Conflict-Based Search demonstrate that the proposed method not only reduces the number of conflicts but also achieves a computation time reduction of over 30%.

With the improvement of people’s living standards and the continuous development of science and technology, people have higher and higher requirements for the auxiliary system needed in daily life. In recent years, the robot field, as a hot field, is often concerned by people. At the same time, image recognition technology is well known and has been widely used in daily life, and its unique characteristics can provide some help for robot path planning. Therefore, it is very necessary to study the robot path planning based on image recognition technology under the computer background. This study discusses the principle and application of image recognition technology, the current situation of robot path planning and the application of image recognition technology in the research of robot path planning, which provides a certain basis for solving this problem.

Mobile robots play a pivotal role in advancing smart manufacturing technologies. However, existing Obstacle avoidance path Planning (OP) algorithms for mobile robots suffer from low stability and applicability. Therefore, this paper proposes an enhanced Secret Bird Optimization Algorithm (SBOA)-based OP algorithm for mobile robots to address these challenges, termed AGMSBOA. Firstly, an adaptive learning strategy is introduced, where individuals enhance the diversity of the algorithm’s population by summarizing relationships among candidates of varying quality, thereby strengthening the algorithm’s ability to locate globally optimal obstacle avoidance path regions. Secondly, a group learning strategy is incorporated by dividing the population into learning and teaching groups, enhancing the algorithm’s exploitation capabilities, improving the accuracy of obstacle avoidance path planning, and reducing actual runtime. Lastly, a multiple population evolution strategy is proposed, which balances the exploration/exploitation phases of the algorithm by analyzing the nature of different individuals, improving the algorithm’s ability to escape suboptimal obstacle avoidance path traps. Subsequently, AGMSBOA was used to solve the OP problem on five maps and two OP problems in real-world environments. The experiments illustrate that AGMSBOA achieves more than 5% performance improvement in path length and a 100–win rate in runtime metrics, as well as faster convergence and stability of the solution. Therefore, AGMSBOA proposed in this paper is an efficient, robust, and robust OP method for mobile robots.