Faculty Publications
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Item Simultaneous exploration and coverage by a mobile robot(Springer Verlag service@springer.de, 2020) Mohammad Minhaz Falaki, P.M.; Padman, A.; Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.In this paper, we propose a problem of simultaneous exploration and coverage for a mobile robot, combining the problems of area coverage with exploration and mapping. The primary task here is to completely cover an initially unknown region. Here we combine the advantages of online and off-line coverage path planning algorithms by using the exploration as an aid. The robots perform intermittent exploration during coverage in order to update the map of the environment, which in turn is used to generate the coverage path. We illustrate and demonstrate the problem using the off-line version of Spanning Tree Coverage algorithm with a frontier-based exploration strategy. The simulation results demonstrate that the robot successfully achieves complete and non-repetitive coverage. © 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.Item Manhattan distance based Voronoi partitioning for efficient multi-robot coverage(Springer Verlag service@springer.de, 2020) Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.In this paper we address the problem of area coverage using multiple cooperating robots. One of the main concerns of using multiple robots is of avoiding repetitive coverage apart from complete coverage of the given area. Partitioning the area to be covered into cells and allotting one each cell to each of the robots for coverage is a simple and elegant solution for this problem. However, the spacial partitioning may lead to additional problems leading to either incomplete coverage or coverage overlap near the partition boundary. We propose a manhattan distance based Voronoi partitioning scheme of 2 D× 2 D gridded region, where D is the size of the robot footprint. We show that the proposed partitioning scheme completely eliminates coverage gaps and coverage overlap using illustrative results. © 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.Item Multi-robot coverage using Voronoi partitioning based on geodesic distance(Springer Verlag service@springer.de, 2020) Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.In this paper we propose Geodesic-VPC, a “partition†and “cover†strategy for a multi-robot system using Voronoi partitioning based on geodesic distance metric in the place of the usual Euclidean distance. Each robot is responsible for covering the corresponding geodesic-Voronoi cell using a single-robot coverage strategy. The proposed partitioning scheme ensures that Voronoi cells are contiguous even in the presence of obstacles. We demonstrate that if the single-robot coverage strategy is capable of providing a complete and non-repetitive coverage, then the proposed Geodesic-VPC strategy provides a complete and non-repetitive coverage. We use spanning tree-based coverage algorithm as the underlying single-robot coverage strategy for the purpose of demonstration, though any existing single-robot coverage algorithm can be used. © 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.Item Application of Coverage Path Planning Algorithm for Milling Operations(Springer, 2020) Kalburgi, S.; Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.In this paper, we present an algorithm for automatic tool path generation for milling operations, where, the ‘cutter’ needs to pass through all the region that is required to be removed, without any gaps. We demonstrate the possibility of using mobile robot coverage path planning (CPP) algorithms for such applications. In the place of the robot footprint size that is used in a mobile robot CPP algorithm, here we use the size (diameter) of the tool as basis for the tool path generation. Here, we use a spanning tree-based competitive and truly complete robot coverage path planning algorithm, which is based on the approximate cellular decomposition. The proposed algorithm is first tested in V-Rep simulation environment with an arbitrary work piece and then real-time experiments were carried out on a CNC machine to demonstrate the proposed algorithm. © 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.Item Centroidal voronoi partitioning using virtual nodes for multirobot coverage(Science Publishing Corporation Inc ijet@sciencepubco.com, 2018) Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.This paper addresses the problem of Voronoi partitioning using Centroidal Voronoi configuration for a multi-robotic coverage strategy known as Voronoi Partition based Coverage (VPC) algorithm. In VPC, the area to be covered is divided into Voronoi cells and each robot covers the corresponding cell. We use the concept of Centroidal Voronoi Configuration (CVC) to achieve a more uniform load distribution among the robots in terms of the area covered. Instead of the robots moving physically into the CVC, we introduce a concept of virtual nodes, which are deployed into CVC. Once the Voronoi partition is created based on the virtual nods, the robots cover the corresponding Voronoi cells. A gradient based control law has been used for deployment of the virtual nodes. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the proposed deployment and partitioning scheme. © 2016 Authors.Item GeoDesic-VPC: Spatial partitioning for multi-robot coverage problem(Acta Press journals@actapress.com, 2020) Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.In this paper, we address a problem of area coverage using multiple cooperating robots using a “partition and cover" approach, where the area of interest is decomposed into as many cells as the robots, and each robot is assigned the task of covering a cell. While the most partitioning approaches used in the literature in the context of a robotic coverage problem may result in topologically disconnected cells in the presence of obstacles leading to incomplete coverage, we propose to use geodesic distance-based generalization of the Voronoi partition, ensuring that each cell that is allotted for a robot for coverage is a topologically connected region, and hence, achieving a complete coverage. The proposed multi-robot coverage strategy is demonstrated with simulation in MATLAB and V-rep simulator, using two single-robot coverage algorithms reported in the literature, namely boustrophedon decomposition-based coverage and spanning tree-based coverage algorithms. © 2020 SAE International. All rights reserved.Item GM-VPC: An Algorithm for Multi-robot Coverage of Known Spaces Using Generalized Voronoi Partition(Cambridge University Press, 2020) Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.SUMMARY In this paper we address the problem of coverage path planning (CPP) for multiple cooperating mobile robots. We use a 'partition and cover' approach using Voronoi partition to achieve natural passive cooperation between robots to avoid task duplicity. We combine two generalizations of Voronoi partition, namely geodesic-distance-based Voronoi partition and Manhattan-distance-based Voronoi partition, to address contiguity of partition in the presence of obstacles and to avoid partition-boundary-induced coverage gap. The region is divided into 2D×2D grids, where D is the size of the robot footprint. Individual robots can use any of the single-robot CPP algorithms. We show that with the proposed Geodesic-Manhattan Voronoi-partition-based coverage (GM-VPC), a complete and non-overlapping coverage can be achieved at grid level provided that the underlying single-robot CPP algorithm has similar property.We demonstrated using two representative single-robot coverage strategies, namely Boustrophedon-decomposition-based coverage and Spanning Tree coverage, first based on so-called exact cellular decomposition and second based on approximate cellular decomposition, that the proposed partitioning scheme completely eliminates coverage gaps and coverage overlaps. Simulation experiments using Matlab and V-rep robot simulator and experiments with Fire Bird V mobile robot are carried out to validate the proposed coverage strategy. © © Cambridge University Press 2019.Item MR-SimExCoverage: Multi-robot Simultaneous Exploration and Coverage(Elsevier Ltd, 2020) Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.In this paper, we present a novel problem of simultaneous exploration and area coverage by multiple cooperating mobile robots. As the robots cover an initially unknown region, they perform intermittent exploration of the region and build a map, which in turn is used to plan the coverage path. We use a Voronoi partition based multi-robot coverage strategy using the Manhattan distance metric to solve the coverage problem and a frontier based exploration strategy for exploration mapping. We provide results of simulation using Matlab/V-rep environments to demonstrate the proposed multi-robot simultaneous exploration and coverage (MR-SimExCoverage) problem using the spanning tree based coverage (STC) algorithm. © 2020 Elsevier LtdItem 2D-VPC: An Efficient Coverage Algorithm for Multiple Autonomous Vehicles(Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems, 2021) Nair, V.G.; Guruprasad, K.R.In this paper, we address a problem of multi-robotic coverage, where an area of interest is covered by multiple sensors, each mounted on an autonomous vehicle such as an aerial or a ground mobile robot. The area of interest is first decomposed into grids of equal size and then partitioned into Voronoi cells. Each robot/sensor is assigned the task of covering the corresponding Voronoi cell. We propose an optimal gridding size and partitioning methodology that eliminate the coverage inefficiencies induced by the partitioning process. We carried out experiments using multiple quadcopters and mobile robots to demonstrate and validate the proposed multi-sensor coverage strategy. © 2021, ICROS, KIEE and Springer.