Autonomous Search of Real-Life Environments Combining Dynamical System-Based Path Planning and Unsupervised Learning

In recent years, advances have been made in chaotic coverage path planning (CCPP) for autonomous search and traversal of spaces with limited environmental cues. However, the field remains unfit for practical application due to limited experimental work addressing three critical challenges: 1) an obs...

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Main Authors: Uyiosa Philip Amadasun, Patrick Mcnamee, Zahra Nili Ahmadabadi, Peiman Naseradinmousavi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11027064/
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author Uyiosa Philip Amadasun
Patrick Mcnamee
Zahra Nili Ahmadabadi
Peiman Naseradinmousavi
author_facet Uyiosa Philip Amadasun
Patrick Mcnamee
Zahra Nili Ahmadabadi
Peiman Naseradinmousavi
author_sort Uyiosa Philip Amadasun
collection DOAJ
description In recent years, advances have been made in chaotic coverage path planning (CCPP) for autonomous search and traversal of spaces with limited environmental cues. However, the field remains unfit for practical application due to limited experimental work addressing three critical challenges: 1) an obstacle avoidance technique that reduces halts or disruptions in continuous chaotic trajectories, 2) a means to spread chaotic trajectories across the environment (especially crucial for large and/or complex-shaped environments) that need to be covered, and 3) a real-time coverage calculation technique that is accurate and independent of cell size. This study develops a novel framework implemented in ROS to address these challenges. We compare our Chaotic Coverage Path Planning (CCPP) approach against Boustrophedon Coverage Path Planning (BCPP) in both simulated and real-world environments. Across all three simulated environments of increasing complexity, BCPP consistently achieved shorter coverage times than our CCPP algorithm. However, an interesting pattern emerged when analyzing the relative performance degradation. When comparing coverage times across environments, CCPP showed less performance degradation than BCPP. Specifically, when normalizing coverage times against the simplest environment, BCPP&#x2019;s performance degraded by factors of 3.31 and 3.59 for the medium and most complex environments, respectively, while CCPP showed lower degradation factors of 2.57 and 2.35. This suggests that CCPP may be more adaptive to increasing environmental size and complexity, despite having longer absolute coverage times. The source code is available at: <uri>https://gitlab.com/dsim-lab/paper-codes/Autonomous_search_of_real-life_environments</uri>
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spelling doaj-art-ea9f505d9f5146a2b83a73ffb10ad3332025-08-20T02:07:19ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-011310127410129610.1109/ACCESS.2025.357749611027064Autonomous Search of Real-Life Environments Combining Dynamical System-Based Path Planning and Unsupervised LearningUyiosa Philip Amadasun0https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1420-6689Patrick Mcnamee1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9303-6931Zahra Nili Ahmadabadi2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3226-4425Peiman Naseradinmousavi3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0724-4070Department of Mechanical Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USADepartment of Mechanical Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USADepartment of Mechanical Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USADepartment of Mechanical Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USAIn recent years, advances have been made in chaotic coverage path planning (CCPP) for autonomous search and traversal of spaces with limited environmental cues. However, the field remains unfit for practical application due to limited experimental work addressing three critical challenges: 1) an obstacle avoidance technique that reduces halts or disruptions in continuous chaotic trajectories, 2) a means to spread chaotic trajectories across the environment (especially crucial for large and/or complex-shaped environments) that need to be covered, and 3) a real-time coverage calculation technique that is accurate and independent of cell size. This study develops a novel framework implemented in ROS to address these challenges. We compare our Chaotic Coverage Path Planning (CCPP) approach against Boustrophedon Coverage Path Planning (BCPP) in both simulated and real-world environments. Across all three simulated environments of increasing complexity, BCPP consistently achieved shorter coverage times than our CCPP algorithm. However, an interesting pattern emerged when analyzing the relative performance degradation. When comparing coverage times across environments, CCPP showed less performance degradation than BCPP. Specifically, when normalizing coverage times against the simplest environment, BCPP&#x2019;s performance degraded by factors of 3.31 and 3.59 for the medium and most complex environments, respectively, while CCPP showed lower degradation factors of 2.57 and 2.35. This suggests that CCPP may be more adaptive to increasing environmental size and complexity, despite having longer absolute coverage times. The source code is available at: <uri>https://gitlab.com/dsim-lab/paper-codes/Autonomous_search_of_real-life_environments</uri>https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11027064/Autonomous robotpath planningunpredictable searchnonlinear dynamical system
spellingShingle Uyiosa Philip Amadasun
Patrick Mcnamee
Zahra Nili Ahmadabadi
Peiman Naseradinmousavi
Autonomous Search of Real-Life Environments Combining Dynamical System-Based Path Planning and Unsupervised Learning
IEEE Access
Autonomous robot
path planning
unpredictable search
nonlinear dynamical system
title Autonomous Search of Real-Life Environments Combining Dynamical System-Based Path Planning and Unsupervised Learning
title_full Autonomous Search of Real-Life Environments Combining Dynamical System-Based Path Planning and Unsupervised Learning
title_fullStr Autonomous Search of Real-Life Environments Combining Dynamical System-Based Path Planning and Unsupervised Learning
title_full_unstemmed Autonomous Search of Real-Life Environments Combining Dynamical System-Based Path Planning and Unsupervised Learning
title_short Autonomous Search of Real-Life Environments Combining Dynamical System-Based Path Planning and Unsupervised Learning
title_sort autonomous search of real life environments combining dynamical system based path planning and unsupervised learning
topic Autonomous robot
path planning
unpredictable search
nonlinear dynamical system
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11027064/
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AT patrickmcnamee autonomoussearchofreallifeenvironmentscombiningdynamicalsystembasedpathplanningandunsupervisedlearning
AT zahraniliahmadabadi autonomoussearchofreallifeenvironmentscombiningdynamicalsystembasedpathplanningandunsupervisedlearning
AT peimannaseradinmousavi autonomoussearchofreallifeenvironmentscombiningdynamicalsystembasedpathplanningandunsupervisedlearning