トポロジカルブレイドを用いた複数テザーロボットの経路計画
Path Planning for Multiple Tethered Robots Using Topological Braids
ケーブルの絡まりをトポロジーのブレイド理論で解析し、2〜3機の相互作用パターンを避けることで絡まりのない経路を探索する手法を提案。最大10機のドローンで100%の到達を達成し、3機のテザーUAV実験で実証した。
著者: Muqing Cao, Kun Cao, Shenghai Yuan, Kangcheng Liu, Yan Loi Wong, Lihua Xie
分類: cs.RO
原文アブストラクト
Path planning for multiple tethered robots is a challenging problem due to the complex interactions among the cables and the possibility of severe entanglements. Previous works on this problem either consider idealistic cable models or provide no guarantee for entanglement-free paths. In this work, we present a new approach to address this problem using the theory of braids. By establishing a topological equivalence between the physical cables and the space-time trajectories of the robots, and identifying particular braid patterns that emerge from the entangled trajectories, we obtain the key finding that all complex entanglements stem from a finite number of interaction patterns between 2 or 3 robots. Hence, non-entanglement can be guaranteed by avoiding these interaction patterns in the trajectories of the robots. Based on this finding, we present a graph search algorithm using the permutation grid to efficiently search for a feasible topology of paths and reject braid patterns that result in an entanglement. We demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can achieve 100% goal-reaching capability without entanglement for up to 10 drones with a slack cable model in a high-fidelity simulation platform. The practicality of the proposed approach is verified using three small tethered UAVs in indoor flight experiments.
