Related papers: Geometric Freeze-Tag Problem
We study unlabeled multi-robot motion planning for unit-disk robots in a polygonal environment. Although the problem is hard in general, polynomial-time solutions exist under appropriate separation assumptions on start and target positions.…
This work is inspired by the problem of planning sequences of operations, as welding, in car manufacturing stations where multiple industrial robots cooperate. The goal is to minimize the station cycle time, \emph{i.e.} the time it takes…
We introduce a new technique for designing fixed-parameter algorithms for cut problems, namely randomized contractions. We apply our framework to obtain the first FPT algorithm for the Unique Label Cover problem and new FPT algorithms with…
The \emph{Tree Augmentation Problem (TAP)} is given a tree $T=(V,E_T)$ and additional set of {\em links} $E$ on $V\times V$, find $F \subseteq E$ such that $T \cup F$ is $2$-edge-connected, and $|F|$ is minimum. The problem is APX-hard…
In the Traveling Salesperson Problem (TSP) we are given a list of locations and the distances between each pair of them. The goal is to find the shortest possible tour that visits each location exactly once and returns to the starting…
We consider a swarm of $n$ robots in \mathbb{R}^d. The robots are oblivious, disoriented (no common coordinate system/compass), and have limited visibility (observe other robots up to a constant distance). The basic formation task gathering…
The Workflow Satisfiability Problem (WSP) asks whether there exists an assignment of authorized users to the steps in a workflow specification, subject to certain constraints on the assignment. The problem is NP-hard even when restricted to…
Humans naturally grasp objects with minimal level required force for stability, whereas robots often rely on rigid, over-squeezing control. To narrow this gap, we propose a human-inspired physics-conditioned tactile method (Phy-Tac) for…
We study the problem of optimal multi-robot path planning on graphs (MPP) over four distinct minimization objectives: the total arrival time, the makespan (last arrival time), the total distance, and the maximum (single-robot traveled)…
The Tree Augmentation Problem (TAP) is a fundamental network design problem in which we are given a tree and a set of additional edges, also called \emph{links}. The task is to find a set of links, of minimum size, whose addition to the…
Finding the Time-Optimal Parameterization of a Path (TOPP) subject to second-order constraints (e.g. acceleration, torque, contact stability, etc.) is an important and well-studied problem in robotics. In comparison, TOPP subject to…
Reachability questions are one of the most fundamental algorithmic primitives in temporal graphs -- graphs whose edge set changes over discrete time steps. A core problem here is the NP-hard Short Restless Temporal Path: given a temporal…
We consider the Shallow-Light Steiner Network problem from a fixed-parameter perspective. Given a graph $G$, a distance bound $L$, and $p$ pairs of vertices $(s_1,t_1),\cdots,(s_p,t_p)$, the objective is to find a minimum-cost subgraph $G'$…
Three challenges limit the progress of robot learning research: robots are expensive (few labs can participate), everyone uses different robots (findings do not generalize across labs), and we lack internet-scale robotics data. We take on…
The Minimum Vertex Cover problem, a classical NP-complete problem, presents significant challenges for exact solution on large graphs. Fixed-Parameter Tractability (FPT) offers a powerful paradigm to address such problems by exploiting a…
Given any multiset F of points in the Euclidean plane and a set R of robots such that |R|=|F|, the Arbitrary Pattern Formation (APF) problem asks for a distributed algorithm that moves robots so as to reach a configuration similar to F.…
Assume that two robots are located at the centre of a unit disk. Their goal is to evacuate from the disk through an exit at an unknown location on the boundary of the disk. At any time the robots can move anywhere they choose on the disk,…
We give a nearly linear time randomized approximation scheme for the Held-Karp bound [Held and Karp, 1970] for metric TSP. Formally, given an undirected edge-weighted graph $G$ on $m$ edges and $\epsilon > 0$, the algorithm outputs in $O(m…
We study the parameterized complexity of a variant of the classic video game Snake that models real-world problems of motion planning. Given a snake-like robot with an initial position and a final position in an environment (modeled by a…
High-speed motions in pick-and-place operations are critical to making robots cost-effective in many automation scenarios, from warehouses and manufacturing to hospitals and homes. However, motions can be too fast -- such as when the object…