The ties that bind: motion planning for multiple tethered robots

Abstract

An algorithm for motion planning for multiple mobile tethered robots in a common planar environment is presented. The tethers of the robots are flexible cables that can be pushed and bent by other robots during their motion. Given the start and target positions of all robots and their cables, the objective is to design a sequential motion strategy for the robots that will not entangle the robot tethers. An algorithm is described that achieves this objective while generating an ordering of the robots that produces reasonably short paths. The algorithm's complexity is O(n/sup 4/), where n is the number of robots.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>