Discovery and monitoring of an environment using a plurality of robots
US8751043B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 14, 2012 |
| Grant date | Jun 10, 2014 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 14, 2032 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG08G1/20
- WIPO fieldControl
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
Techniques are provided for discovery and monitoring of an environment using a plurality of robots. A plurality of robots navigate an environment by determining a navigation buffer for each of the robots; and allowing each of the robots to navigate within the environment while maintaining a substantially minimum distance from other robots, wherein the substantially minimum distance corresponds to the navigation buffer, and wherein a size of each of the navigation buffers is reduced over time based on a percentage of the environment that remains to be navigated. The robots can also navigate an environment by obtaining a discretization of the environment to a plurality of discrete regions; and determining a next unvisited discrete region for one of the plurality of robots to explore in the exemplary environment using a breadth-first search. The plurality of discrete regions can be, for example, a plurality of real or virtual tiles.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.