Distributed Model Predictive Contouring Control for Real-Time Multi-Robot Motion Planning

Journal Article (2022)
Author(s)

Jianbin Xin (Zhengzhou University)

Yaoguang Qu (Zhengzhou University)

Fangfang Zhang (Zhengzhou University)

R. R. Negenborn (TU Delft - Transport Engineering and Logistics)

Research Group
Transport Engineering and Logistics
Copyright
© 2022 Jianbin Xin, Yaoguang Qu, Fangfang Zhang, R.R. Negenborn
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.23919/CSMS.2022.0017
More Info
expand_more
Publication Year
2022
Language
English
Copyright
© 2022 Jianbin Xin, Yaoguang Qu, Fangfang Zhang, R.R. Negenborn
Research Group
Transport Engineering and Logistics
Issue number
4
Volume number
2
Pages (from-to)
273-287
Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Abstract

Existing motion planning algorithms for multi-robot systems must be improved to address poor coordination and increase low real-time performance. This paper proposes a new distributed real-time motion planning method for a multi-robot system using Model Predictive Contouring Control (MPCC). MPCC allows separating the tracking accuracy and productivity, to improve productivity better than the traditional Model Predictive Control (MPC) which follows a time-dependent reference. In the proposed distributed MPCC, each robot exchanges the predicted paths of the other robots and generates the collision-free motion in a parallel manner. The proposed distributed MPCC method is tested in industrial operation scenarios in the robot simulation platform Gazebo. The simulation results show that the proposed distributed MPCC method realizes real-time multi-robot motion planning and performs better than three commonly-used planning methods (dynamic window approach, MPC, and prioritized planning).