A Force Field Method Based Multi-Robot Collaboration

A force field (F²) based multi-robot collaboration method is presented in this paper. In this method, a virtual force field is generated for every moving robot and continuously changing based on the robot status including its traveling speed, dimension, priority, location and environment, etc. The interactions among robots' force fields and obstacles provide a natural way for collision avoidance and collaboration while robots are on their way to goals. In this paper, the definition of reaction force direction is modified to reduce robot orientation oscillations which occur when a robot approaches obstacles or other robots. Then the influence of task priority on motion planning and the problem of deadlock in multi-robot cases are discussed. Simulations in a real indoor environment were carried out and demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of this method