Multi-robot path planning using learning-based Artificial Bee Colony algorithm

Multi-robot path planning (MRPP) in continuous and known environment is studied in this paper via proposing a novel local path planning approach. To plan optimal collision-free paths for multiple robots simultaneously, a novel implementation method suitable for the meta-heuristic algorithms is devised, and an improved artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is developed. Three enhancements to the ABC algorithm are made in this context. Firstly, to better lead the search direction, the global best individual is involved in the search equations of employed bee phase and scout bee phase. Meanwhile, to boost exploitation capability, the learning method of teaching-learning based optimization (TLBO) algorithm is incorporated into the onlooker bee phase. The proposed learning-based ABC (ABCL) algorithm is used to determine the subsequent positions for all the robots based on their current coordinates considering the path length, safety and planning efficiency. The experimental studies on benchmark functions show that ABCL is outstanding in solving different types of optimization problems compared against seven effective meta-heuristic algorithms. More importantly, MRPP simulation results prove that ABCL outperforms its competitors in terms of generating optimal collision-free paths and running time. Compared with the original ABC, ABCL improves these two aspects on average for all tasks by 2.1% and 12.6%, respectively. Therefore, with the proposed implementation method, ABCL can be considered as an effective MRPP solution.