Collision avoidance planning in multi-robot based on improved artificial potential field and rules

For the real-time and distributed features of multi-robot system, the strategy of combining the improved artificial potential field method and the rules based on priority is used to study the collision avoidance planning problem in multi-robot systems. The traditional artificial potential field method has some drawbacks, improved artificial potential field based on simulated annealing algorithm satisfactorily resolved this issue, so robots can found a local collision-free path in the complex environment. Through the robot´s movement vector trail, collisions between robots can be detected, thereby activate the collision avoidance rules. Coordination between the robots by the priority based rules improves the real-time property of multi-robot system well. The combination of these two methods can make robot to find a collision-free path from a starting point to the goal quickly in an environment with many obstacles. Finally, the VC-based simulation environment tests the feasibility of the method.