Path Planning for Cleaning Robots: A Graph Model Approach

We propose a new method of path planning for cleaning robots. Path planning problem for cleaning robots is different from conventional path planning problems in which finding a collision-free trajectory from a start point to a goal point is focused. In the case of cleaning robots, however, a planned path should cover all area to be cleaned. To resolve this problem in a systematic way, we propose a method based on a graph model as follows: at first, partition a given map into proper regions, then transform a divided region to a vertex and a connectivity between regions to an edge of a graph. Finally, a region is divided into sub-regions so that the graph has a unary tree which is the simplest Hamilton path. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown by computer simulation results.