Path planning for a formation of autonomous robots in an unknown environment using artificial force fields

A novel approach to path planning for the formation of a swarm of autonomous robots in an unknown environment is presented in this paper. This approach is designed based on the traditional potential fields combined with the rotational vector field. Under the action of this blended vector field, autonomous robots can easily avoid obstacles in order to reach the target position. Furthermore, in this approach, the neighboring robots in a swarm will be linked to each other by the attractive and the repulsive vector field between them in order to generate a stable formation. Information about obstacles, which each member robot detects from the environment, will be sent to all other member robots in the swarm. Hence, while these autonomous robots move towards the target position, the formation of them is maintained and there are no collisions between them. Simulation results and experiments have verified the success of this approach.