Path Planning for a Multi-robot System with Decentralized Control Architecture

In this chapter we have studied the path planning problem of a group of autonomous Wheeled Mobile Robots in a very dynamic workspace. The work focuses on the combination of artificial potential field approach with the decentralized architecture to coordinate the movements of robots. The technique implemented is adapted to solve the path planning problem for a multi-robot system. So, the problem of coordination of robots at the intersection zone is solved by the use of the priority allocation method. We also used the neighborhood detection technique to reduce the influence area of each robot and to optimize the time of calculation. The solution is tested and simulated with Matlab/Simulink.