A Disjunctive Programming Approach for Motion Planning of Mobile Router Networks

In this paper we develop a framework based on disjunctive programming for motion planning of robotic networks. Although the methodology presented in this paper can be applied to general motion planning problems we focus on coordinating a team of mobile routers to maintain connectivity between a fixed base station and a mobile user within a walled environment. This connectivity management problem is decomposed into three steps: (i) a feasible line-of-sight path between the base station and the mobile user is computed; (ii) the number of required routers and their goal locations are determined; and (iii) the motion planning with obstacle and inter-vehicle collision avoidance problem is solved. To illustrate the flexibility of the proposed approach we also formulate a novel motion planning algorithm for a team of mobile robots as a disjunctive program. Cell decomposition is used to take into account the size and orientation of the robots. In both cases, connectivity and motion planning, the mixed-integer optimization problems are solve using CPLEX. Moreover, the proposed approach can easily accommodate input and other constraints and mission objectives. Simulation results show the applicability of the proposed strategy.