Motion Planning of Multiple Mobile Robots Using Virtual Impedance

This paper proposes a planning method for multiple mobile robot systems. It has two characteristics: (1) Each robot plans a path on its own, without any supervisor; (2) The concept of cooperative motion can be implemented. A two-layered hierarchy is defined for a scheme of individual path planning. The higher layer generates a trajectory from the current position to a goal. The lower layer called“Virtual Impedance Metho” makes a real-time plan to follow the generated trajectory while avoiding obstacles and avoiding or cooperating with other robots. This layer is composed of four modules called, “watchdog”, “deadlock solver”,“blockade solver”, and “pilot”. The local equilibrium is detected by the watchdog and cancelled by the deadlock solver or the blockade solver. Simulation results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method.