A Hybrid Tabu Search and 2-opt Path Programming for Mission Route Planning of Multiple Robots under Range Limitations
Meng-Tse Lee, Bo-Yu Chen, Ying‐Chih Lai · Electronics · 2020
The application of an unmanned vehicle system allows for accelerating the performance of various tasks. Due to limited capacities, such as battery power, it is almost impossible for a single unmanned vehicle to complete a large-scale mission area. An unmanned vehicle swarm has the potential to distribute tasks and coordinate the operations of many robots/drones with very little operator intervention. Therefore, multiple unmanned vehicles are required to execute a set of well-planned mission routes, in order to minimize time and energy consumption. A two-phase heuristic algorithm was used to pursue this goal. In the first phase, a tabu search and the 2-opt node exchange method were used to generate a single optimal path for all target nodes; the solution was then split into multiple clusters according to vehicle numbers as an initial solution for each. In the second phase, a tabu algorithm combined with a 2-opt path exchange was used to further improve the in-route and cross-route solutions for each route. This diversification strategy allowed for approaching the global optimal solution, rather than a regional one with less CPU time. After these algorithms were coded, a group of three robot cars was used to validate this hybrid path programming algorithm.