Patrol Path Planning Method for Security Robot

Security robots have been developed for years. Previous robot developers mainly focus on motion control and navigation. However for high-leveled planning, which enables robot’s autonomous patrol, has yet to be well researched. This research aims at developing a numerical modeling and planning methods for patrol paths of an in-door security robot. The patrol problem is modeled as a graph searching issue by segmenting the patrol area into several patrol regions. The vacant time of regions is one major factor associate with the patrol efficiency in the patrol model. According to the two indexes, “Average Patrol Omission” and “Average Patrol Quality,” provided by the patrol model, patrol decisions makers can verify their patrol strategy. Two patrol path planning methods,” Shortest Path Permutations Method” and “Locally Optimum Repetitious Method,” developed by the research are used to plan an effective routine patrol path and long-term patrol path in real time for autonomous security robots. A virtual reality system, named Security Robot Simulator, based on “Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio,” is then developed to simulate the security scenario and provide a test environment for the patrol plan.