| dc.description.abstract |
We propose Frontier Allocation Synchronized
by Token passing (FAST), a distributed algorithm
for online terrain coverage using multiple
mobile robots, ensuring mutually exclusive selection
of frontier cells. Many existing approaches cover the
terrain in an irregular fashion, without considering the
usability of the already covered region. For instance,
in the task of floor cleaning in an office building,
these approaches do not guarantee the cleanliness of
large unbroken areas until a majority of the task is
complete. FAST on the other hand, incrementally traverses
the terrain generating structured trajectories
for each robot. Following a structured trajectory for
coverage path planning is proven to be a very powerful
approach in literature. This renders large portions
of the terrain usable even before the completion
of the coverage task. The novel map representation
techniques used in FAST render it scalable to large
terrains, without affecting the volume of communication
among robots. Moreover, the distributed nature of
FAST allows incorporation of fault-tolerance mechanisms. |
en_US |