Towards the always-on operation of mobile service robots

Service robots offer a wide variety of applications and can enhance capability by considering a network of robots. For autonomous mobile robots, the energy availability is essential to sustain prolonged operation periods, leading to the challenge of periodical recharge. This work addresses this challenge considering the usage of mobile shuttle robots that recharge the service robots while they are performing their tasks. With this purpose, a simulator is developed with MATLAB, which implements a smart algorithm, making decisions for the shuttle robots to manage the energy provision of the service robots. We assume that the service robots have their routes and tasks preplanned, while the smart algorithm computes how shuttle robots select target service robots, define the meeting points and plan their paths towards meeting points. The always-on functionality of service robots was evaluated for a single Shuttle Robot in various scenarios considering battery capacities, charging rates, as well as different locations of the charging station. The developed simulator allowed to collect detailed data about the overall network behaviour. Results indicate that the charging rate of mobile robots is the most influencing parameter in the performance of the network.