Hybrid Boustrophedon and Partition Tree Group Algorithm for Coverage Path Planning Problem with Energy Constraints

Abstract

Coverage path planning (CPP) finds the shortest feasible paths passing through all points of an environment while avoiding obstacles. Previous studies usually assume that a robot has infinite power and can fully cover the workspace with only one charge, but most mobile robots run under a limited energy budget. This study focuses on the CPP problem for a mobile robot with constrained energy power that satisfies two main optimization objectives: the total distance and the number of repeated cells. We propose a hybrid algorithm between the Boustrophedon and the partition tree group algorithms, namely B-WZone, for the CPP with energy constraints. The performance of this algorithm is compared with existing methods. The experimental results showed that the B-WZone algorithm helps the robot reduce energy consumption and traveling time in all the tested environments.