Coverage Path Planning: The Boustrophedon Cellular Decomposition

Abstract

Coverage path planning is the determination of a path that a robot must take in order to pass over each point i n a n e n vironment. Applications include vacuuming, oor scrubbing, and inspection. We developed the boustrophedon cellular decomposition, which is an exact cellular decomposition approach, for the purposes of coverage. Each cell in the boustrophedon is covered with simple back and forth motions. Once each cell is covered, then the entire environment i s c o v ered. Therefore, coverage is reduced to nding an exhaustive path through a graph which represents the adjacency relationships of the cells in the boustrophedon decomposition. This approach is provably complete and Experiments on a mobile robot validate this approach.

Probabilistic Network Formation through Coverage and Freeze-Tag

“…The coverage or lawn mowing problem [5,6] has been extensively studied and is known to be closely related to Traveling Salesperson Problem. The primary difference between network formation and standard multi-robot coverage is that in coverage, all robots participate in the coverage process from the beginning.…”

Optimal area covering using genetic algorithms

“…Wong and MacDonald approach [3] uses natural landmarks in the environment to construct subregions. Choset [4] uses Boustrophedon, back and forth ox-like motions, to cover cells. Using a template based method, the complete trajectory is planned as a sequence of pre-defined trajectories or templates.…”

Optimal complete terrain coverage using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

“…Our approach to terrain coverage is to decompose a 2-dimensional environment with obstacles into simple regions using the Boustrophedon Cellular Decomposition (BCD) algorithm [1]. This representation leads to a systematic motion pattern that covers each region individually and completely, by using a back and forth motion.…”

“…RELATED WORK Choset and Pignon [1] first introduced the Boustrophedon Cellular Decomposition (BCD) family of algorithms for coverage-based path planning in an unknown environment. Their general coverage strategy extended the Seed Spreader algorithm [3] for producing back-and-forth sweeping motions through the free space.…”

“…Their general coverage strategy extended the Seed Spreader algorithm [3] for producing back-and-forth sweeping motions through the free space. Acar et al [4] further developed BCD-based coverage with experimental verification for a variety of control Morse functions. Mannadiar and Rekleitis [2] presented a variant of this technique which guaranteed optimal coverage for an arbitrary known environment.…”