Punctual versus continuous auction coordination for multi-robot and multi-task topological navigation

International audienceThis paper addresses the interest of using Punctual versus Continuous coordination for mobile multi-robot systems where robots use auction sales to allocate tasks between them and to compute their policies in a distributed way. In Continuous coordination, one task at a time is assigned and performed per robot. In Punctual coordination, all the tasks are distributed in Rendezvous phases during the mission execution. However , tasks allocation problem grows exponentially with the number of tasks. The proposed approach consists in two aspects: (1) a control architecture based on topo-logical representation of the environment which reduces the planning complexity and (2) a protocol based on Sequential Simultaneous Auctions (SSA) to coordinate Robots' policies. The policies are individually computed using Markov Decision Processes oriented by several goal-task positions to reach. Experimental results on both real robots and simulation describe an evaluation of the proposed robot architecture coupled wih the SSA protocol. The efficiency of missions' execution is empirically evaluated regarding continuous planning

Safe and Efficient Navigation of a Mobile Robot: Path Planning Based on Hierarchical Topology Map and Motion Planning with Pedestrian Behavior Model

Safety in mobile robot navigation is an essential aspect, but it is often accompanied by a trade-off of efficiency in different navigation steps. For global planning, safety is frequently handled by inflated obstacles. Larger margins to the obstacles increase safety while lessening the path efficiency, such as longer path length. For local motion planning tasks, safety becomes even more critical because of dynamic objects in the robot's proximity but also accompanies substantial trade-offs, such as highly low-speed operations. In such aspects of safety and efficiency, we propose safe and efficient global path planning and local motion planning methods. For global path planning, we proposed the allowable speed of navigation for safety, which limits the maximum speed based on the clearances in the environment. The corresponding cost formulates the traveling time, leading to planning a time-efficient global path. A new map representation is proposed, named Hierarchical Topology Map (HTM) and Hierarchical Topology Map with Explicit Corridor (HTM-EC), and incorporated with the proposed safety-aware navigation speed. HTM is a double-layered data structure of a topology graph and the corresponding metric skeleton points of a map, which returns a feasible, on-skeleton path in an extremely short time. HTM-EC is an extended map expression with the Explicit Corridor that incorporates the nearest obstacle points along with skeleton points into HTM, which returns an optimal, off-skeleton (i.e., metric) path with corridor optimization of the given on-skeleton path. When they are used together, safety-aware time-efficient paths can be planned with light computation. The efficacy of the safety-aware allowable speed and lighter computations have been verified with simulations and experiments. For local motion planning, we incorporate a pedestrian navigation model to address efficiency. The pedestrian model seeks the desired direction of motion that minimizes the remaining distance to the destination. The cognitive collision locations are computed, which enables far-sighted path planning by incorporating future configurations of the surroundings. Safety guarantee is analyzed for the output of the pedestrian-model-based motion planner. Finally, to address the behavioral uncertainties, the degree of cooperation (DoC) is proposed that helps prediction of the other objects' velocities with online estimation. The simulation results with the different number of agents show that the pedestrian model can generate a smooth path between the agents. As the local planner uses fixed-length visual measurement such as LiDAR, the proposed planner is scalable regardless of the number of moving obstacles as well as the types of obstacles (i.e., static or dynamic)

Proceedings of the Conference on Production Systems and Logistics: CPSL 2022

[no abstract available

Factories of the Future

Engineering; Industrial engineering; Production engineerin

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Guiding readers through the basics of these rapidly emerging networks to more advanced concepts and future expectations, Mobile Ad hoc Networks: Current Status and Future Trends identifies and examines the most pressing research issues in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). Containing the contributions of leading researchers, industry professionals, and academics, this forward-looking reference provides an authoritative perspective of the state of the art in MANETs. The book includes surveys of recent publications that investigate key areas of interest such as limited resources and the mobility of mobile nodes. It considers routing, multicast, energy, security, channel assignment, and ensuring quality of service. Also suitable as a text for graduate students, the book is organized into three sections: Fundamentals of MANET Modeling and Simulation—Describes how MANETs operate and perform through simulations and models Communication Protocols of MANETs—Presents cutting-edge research on key issues, including MAC layer issues and routing in high mobility Future Networks Inspired By MANETs—Tackles open research issues and emerging trends Illustrating the role MANETs are likely to play in future networks, this book supplies the foundation and insight you will need to make your own contributions to the field. It includes coverage of routing protocols, modeling and simulations tools, intelligent optimization techniques to multicriteria routing, security issues in FHAMIPv6, connecting moving smart objects to the Internet, underwater sensor networks, wireless mesh network architecture and protocols, adaptive routing provision using Bayesian inference, and adaptive flow control in transport layer using genetic algorithms

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Guiding readers through the basics of these rapidly emerging networks to more advanced concepts and future expectations, Mobile Ad hoc Networks: Current Status and Future Trends identifies and examines the most pressing research issues in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). Containing the contributions of leading researchers, industry professionals, and academics, this forward-looking reference provides an authoritative perspective of the state of the art in MANETs. The book includes surveys of recent publications that investigate key areas of interest such as limited resources and the mobility of mobile nodes. It considers routing, multicast, energy, security, channel assignment, and ensuring quality of service. Also suitable as a text for graduate students, the book is organized into three sections: Fundamentals of MANET Modeling and Simulation—Describes how MANETs operate and perform through simulations and models Communication Protocols of MANETs—Presents cutting-edge research on key issues, including MAC layer issues and routing in high mobility Future Networks Inspired By MANETs—Tackles open research issues and emerging trends Illustrating the role MANETs are likely to play in future networks, this book supplies the foundation and insight you will need to make your own contributions to the field. It includes coverage of routing protocols, modeling and simulations tools, intelligent optimization techniques to multicriteria routing, security issues in FHAMIPv6, connecting moving smart objects to the Internet, underwater sensor networks, wireless mesh network architecture and protocols, adaptive routing provision using Bayesian inference, and adaptive flow control in transport layer using genetic algorithms

Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology

kwartalni

Fuelling the zero-emissions road freight of the future: routing of mobile fuellers

The future of zero-emissions road freight is closely tied to the sufficient availability of new and clean fuel options such as electricity and Hydrogen. In goods distribution using Electric Commercial Vehicles (ECVs) and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles (HFCVs) a major challenge in the transition period would pertain to their limited autonomy and scarce and unevenly distributed refuelling stations. One viable solution to facilitate and speed up the adoption of ECVs/HFCVs by logistics, however, is to get the fuel to the point where it is needed (instead of diverting the route of delivery vehicles to refuelling stations) using "Mobile Fuellers (MFs)". These are mobile battery swapping/recharging vans or mobile Hydrogen fuellers that can travel to a running ECV/HFCV to provide the fuel they require to complete their delivery routes at a rendezvous time and space. In this presentation, new vehicle routing models will be presented for a third party company that provides MF services. In the proposed problem variant, the MF provider company receives routing plans of multiple customer companies and has to design routes for a fleet of capacitated MFs that have to synchronise their routes with the running vehicles to deliver the required amount of fuel on-the-fly. This presentation will discuss and compare several mathematical models based on different business models and collaborative logistics scenarios