Robot Coverage Path Planning under Uncertainty Using Knowledge Inference and Hedge Algebras

Abstract

Human behaviour demonstrates environmental awareness and self-awareness which is used to arrive at decisions and actions or reach conclusions based on reasoning and inference. Environmental awareness and self-awareness are traits which autonomous robotic systems must have to effectively plan an optimal route and operate in dynamic operating environments. This paper proposes a novel approach to enable autonomous robotic systems to achieve efficient coverage path planning, which combines adaptation with knowledge reasoning techniques and hedge algebras to achieve optimal coverage path planning in multiple decision-making under dynamic operating environments. To evaluate the proposed approach we have implemented it in a mobile cleaning robot. The results demonstrate the ability to avoid static and dynamic (moving) obstacles while achieving efficient coverage path planning with low repetition rates. While alternative current coverage path planning algorithms have achieved acceptable results, our reported results have demonstrated a significant performance improvement over the alternative coverage path planning algorithms.