A novel solution with rapid Voronoi-based coverage path planning in irregular environment for robotic mowing systems

This paper presents a novel solution of coverage path planning for robotic mowing applications. The planning algorithm is based on the Boustrophedon motions and the rapid Voronoi diagram. The coordinate conversion and the sweeping vector is defined by minimum bounding box and the Voronoi travel paths are designed to reduce the computational cost and execution time compared to conventional heuristic methods. The tracked path is controlled via dynamic feedback in standard lawn mowing robots under robot operating system (ROS). Within ROS, the information exchanging among different tasks of both extensive simulation cases and experimental field tests can be conducted easily. When meeting unknown obstacles, the proposed algorithm can re-plan its paths dynamically. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared to several conventional coverage algorithms in terms of time efficiency, coverage, repetition, and robustness with respect to both concave and convex shapes. The field tests are conducted to demonstrate that the applicability of the sensor fusion and robustness of the proposed algorithm for the complete coverage tasks by robotic mowers.