Efficient Path Planning for Collision Avoidance of Construction Vibration Robots Based on Euclidean Signed Distance...

Traditional manual concrete vibration work faces numerous limitations, necessitating the need for efficient automated methods to support this task. This study proposes a path safety optimization method based on safe flight corridors and Euclidean signed distance fields, which is suitable for flexible autonomous movement of vibrating robots between various vibration points. By utilizing a vector method to generate safe flight corridors and optimizing the path with Euclidean signed distance fields, the proposed method reduces the runtime by 80% compared to the original safe flight corridor method and enhances safety by 50%. On embedded systems, the runtime is less than 10 ms. This study is the first to apply the combination of safe flight corridors and Euclidean distance fields for autonomous navigation in concrete vibration tasks, optimizing the original path into a smooth trajectory that stays clear of obstacles. Actual tests of the vibrating robot showed that, compared to traditional methods, the algorithm allows the robot to safely avoid fixed obstacles and moving workers, increasing the execution efficiency of vibration tasks by 60%. Additionally, on-site experiments conducted at three construction sites demonstrated the robustness of the proposed method. The findings of this study advance the automation of concrete vibration work and hold significant implications for the fields of robotics and civil engineering.