A novel approach for multiple mobile robot path planning in dynamic unknown environment

Multiple mobile robot path planning in dynamic unknown environment is challenging. In this paper a novel artificial potential field (APF) based approach is proposed. In this approach, a robot will be pulled to the goal position with the influence of the goal and static obstacles. When two or more robots meet at the range of safe distance, those robots will be prioritized according to the priority of the task they undertake, velocity and their size. The robot with higher priority will pass the intersection first. If they have the same priority, they will generate a priority order randomly to each other. By this way, they will avoid collision between each other. Simulation results are provided to validate the concepts and analyses are made to show the effectiveness of the approach.