We propose a solution to the problem of herding by caging: given a set of mobile robots (called herders) and a group of moving agents (called sheep), we guide the sheep to a target location without letting them escape from the herders along the way. We model the interaction between the herders and the sheep by defining virtual “repulsive forces” pushing the sheep away from the herders. This enables the herders to partially control the motion of the sheep. We formalize this behavior topologically by applying the notion of caging, a concept used in robotic manipulation. We demonstrate that our approach is provably correct in the sense that the sheep cannot escape from the robots under our assumed motion model. We propose an RRT-based path planning algorithm for herding by caging, demonstrate its probabilistic completeness, and evaluate it in simulations as well as on a group of real mobile robots.

我们提出了通过笼养来解决放牧问题的解决方案：给定一组移动机器人（称为牧民）和一组移动代理（称为绵羊），我们将绵羊引导到目标位置，而又不让它们沿着牧民从牧民中逃脱。道路。我们通过定义虚拟“排斥力”将绵羊推离牧民，对牧民和绵羊之间的相互作用进行建模。这使牧民能够部分控制绵羊的运动。我们通过应用笼子概念在拓扑上将此行为形式化，用于机器人操纵的概念。我们证明，在假设的运动模型下，绵羊无法从机器人逃脱的意义上，我们的方法是正确的。我们提出了一种用于笼养的基于RRT的路径规划算法，展示了其概率完整性，并在仿真以及一组真实的移动机器人中对其进行了评估。