Zone Boundary Adjustment for Multi-Robot Travel Conflict Planning
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Solution Overview
Problem
In scenarios where multiple mobile objects move simultaneously in a narrow area, conflicts such as collisions and deadlocks can occur if each object moves freely without a coordinated plan.
Innovation Solution
The information processing apparatus divides the movement area into partial areas or zones and generates a travel plan for each mobile object within these zones, adjusting the boundary between zones to ensure that conflicts do not occur within each zone.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the entire movement area is divided into a large number of partial areas to prevent conflicts, then conflict prevention capability is improved, but calculation time for generating travel plans increases excessively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the movement area into multiple partial areas (zones) and generates travel plans for each zone separately. This segmentation allows the system to manage conflict prevention in smaller, more manageable units rather than attempting to coordinate all mobile objects across the entire movement area simultaneously, thus reducing calculation time while maintaining conflict prevention capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different levels of planning detail to different zones based on local conditions. Travel plans are generated with appropriate granularity for each partial area, allowing the system to focus computational resources on zones where conflicts are more likely to occur while using simpler coordination in less critical areas, thereby optimizing the balance between reliability and calculation time.
2Reliability
If detailed travel plans are generated for all mobile objects across the entire movement area, then conflict prevention is improved, but the complexity of the planning system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the travel planning process into zone-level plans rather than generating a single comprehensive plan for the entire movement area. This reduces system complexity by breaking down the planning task into smaller, independent sub-tasks that can be managed separately, while still achieving overall conflict prevention through coordination at zone boundaries.
3Productivity
If the movement area is divided into many small partial areas, then travel plan generation speed is improved, but the number of boundaries to manage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic boundary adjustment where zone boundaries are not fixed but can be adaptively modified based on mobile object positions and movement patterns. This allows the system to optimize the number and configuration of boundaries in real-time, maintaining fast travel plan generation speed while reducing unnecessary boundary management complexity by consolidating zones when appropriate.
Data Source
AI summary
An information-processing-apparatus includes a processing-unit. The processing-unit determines, using a route plan of a route on which each of mobile objects moves among routes in a movement area where the mobile objects move, for each mobile object, whether a first-partial area as a partial area to which a first-position of the mobile object existing belongs and a second-partial area as a partial area to which a second-position to move next to the first-position belongs differ among partial areas in the movement area. When the first-partial area and the second-partial area differ, the processing-unit changes a boundary between the first-partial area and the second-partial area such that the first-position is included in the second-partial area. The processing-unit generates, for each partial area, a travel plan specifying a moving timing by the mobile objects on the route avoiding a conflict between the mobile objects on the partial-area route.