Coverage path planning using mobile robot team formations

The multi-robot coverage path-planning problem involves finding collision-free paths for a set of robots so that they can completely cover the surface of an environment. This problem is non-trivial as the geometry and location of obstacles in the environment is usually not known a priori by the robots, and they have to adapt their coverage path as they discover obstacles while moving in the environment. Additionally, the robots have to avoid repeated coverage of the same region by each other to reduce the coverage time and energy expended. This chapter discusses the research results in developing multi-robot coverage path planning techniques using mini-robots that are coordinated to move in formation. The authors present theoretical and experimental results of the proposed approach using e-puck mini-robots. Finally, they discuss some preliminary results to lay the foundation of future research for improved coverage path planning using coalition game-based, structured, robot team reconfiguration techniques.