Coverage Path Planning under the Energy Constraint

In the coverage path planning problem, a common assumption is that the robot can fully cover the environment without recharging. However, in reality most mobile robot systems operate under battery limitations. To incorporate this constraint, we consider the problem when the working environment is large and the robot needs to recharge multiple times to fully cover the environment. We focus on a geometric version where the environment is represented as a polygonal grid with a single charging station. Energy consumption throughout the environment is assumed to be uniform and proportional to the distance traveled. We first present a constant-factor approximation algorithm for contour-connected environments. We then extend the algorithm for general environments. We also validate the results in experiments performed with an aerial robot.