Discovery and monitoring of an environment using a plurality of robots

• US 8,751,043 B2
• Filed: 09/14/2012
• Issued: 06/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/12/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Terrace Licensing LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Guo, Shang Q., Isci, Canturk, Lenchner, Jonathan, Mukherjee, Maharaj
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Khoi
• Assistant Examiner(s): LIN, ABBY YEE
• Application Number:
  US13/616,245
• Publication Number:
  US 20130184865A1
• Time in Patent Office: 634 Days
• Field of Search: 318/568.12, 700/1, 700245-264, 701/422, 701300-302, 701/29.3, 701/482, 901/1
• US Class Current: 700/248
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/39146 Swarm, multiagent, distributed multitask fusion, cooperation multi robots
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/39168 Multiple robots searching an object
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0274 using mapping information stored in a memory device navigation using map-matching G01C21/30
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0291 Fleet control monitoring fleets in traffic control systems for road vehicles G08G1/127, G08G1/127
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/20 Monitoring the location of vehicles belonging to a group, e.g. fleet of vehicles, countable or determined number of vehicles

Abstract

Techniques are provided for discovery and monitoring of an environment using a plurality of robots. A plurality of robots navigate an environment by determining a navigation buffer for each of the robots; and allowing each of the robots to navigate within the environment while maintaining a substantially minimum distance from other robots, wherein the substantially minimum distance corresponds to the navigation buffer, and wherein a size of each of the navigation buffers is reduced over time based on a percentage of the environment that remains to be navigated. The robots can also navigate an environment by obtaining a discretization of the environment to a plurality of discrete regions; and determining a next unvisited discrete region for one of the plurality of robots to explore in the exemplary environment using a breadth-first search. The plurality of discrete regions can be, for example, a plurality of real or virtual tiles.

Claims

1. A method for navigating a plurality of robots in an environment to be navigated, comprising the steps of:

determining a plurality of navigation buffers for said corresponding plurality of robots; and

allowing each of said plurality of robots to navigate within said environment to be navigated while maintaining a substantially minimum distance from other robots, wherein said substantially minimum distance corresponds to a size of said navigation buffers, wherein said size of each of said navigation buffers is reduced based on a ratio of space remaining to be navigated relative to an initial size of said environment, wherein at least one of said steps of said method are performed by at least one hardware device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said plurality of navigation buffers are reduced in direct proportion to said ratio of space remaining to be navigated relative to said initial size of said environment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said plurality of navigation buffers comprise k navigation buffers that are initialized to starting navigation buffers for fitting k substantially uniform navigation buffers inside said environment.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said ratio of space remaining to be navigated relative to said initial size of said environment is an estimated value.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said size of at least one of said plurality of navigation buffers is further based on a speed of said corresponding robot.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of said plurality of navigation buffers comprises a circle of a given radius around said corresponding robot.