Online complete coverage path planning using two-way proximity search

Abstract

This paper presents an efficient online approach for complete coverage path planning of mobile robots in an unknown workspace based on online boustrophedon motion and an optimized backtracking mechanism. The presented approach first performs a single continuous boustrophedon motion until a critical point is reached. In order to completely cover the environment, next starting point is decided by using the accumulated knowledge of the environment map. An efficient backtracking technique based on proposed Two-way Proximity Search algorithm is used to plan a path from the critical point to the new starting point. Simulation results show the efficiency of proposed backtracking approach with improved total coverage time, coverage path length and memory requirements.