Priority Scheduling based Dynamic Path Planning
System with Motion Feedback
Vignesh Ravikumar Sriram Shreedharan
Department of EEE Department of EEE
SSN College of Engineering SSN College of Engineering
Chennai, India Chennai, India
vigneshr2306@gmail.com sriramshreedharan1905@gmail.com
Abstract—Mobile Robots have become an integral part of
the environment and one of the main focus is on multiple robot
coordination systems. This research article proposes a modified
grid-based A* path planning algorithm that can be used for
the simultaneous planning and motion of mobile robots in a
dynamic environment. The algorithm includes priority-based
scheduling of robots for practical applications. It also takes into
account, the re-planning of the path of the robot using motion
feedback from encoders, in the case where the robot leaves the
configuration space due to dynamic obstacles. A multi-robot
system is set up to verify the proposed method of path planning.
Keywords— Path-planning, Image processing, A* algorithm,
Dynamic environment, Priority-based scheduling, Encoder-based
motion feedback
I. I NTRODUCTION
Path planning is a term used to evaluate a set of valid
configurations that moves the mobile robot from source to
destination. The usual implementation of these path plan-
ning is in autonomous vehicles, search and rescue robots,
humanoid robots and are usually vision-based. These fields
require the perfect accuracy of the path to ensure safety and
functioning. These algorithms perform complex calculations
to determine the optimum path in the dynamic environment
for the traversal of the robot to the destination smoothly. In
a dynamic environment, the obstacles are mobile and can
make the planned path opaque. In this condition, a new
path has to be planned from the point where the obstacle
occurs. In other words, the path is re-planned. According
to a reputed US-based website Forbes, the United States
has recorded approximately 37,000 deaths per year due to
car accidents [1]. To mollify the scenario, it is safer to
implement autonomous systems for cars to reduce fatality.
The autonomous robot path planning system is essential in
robotics to explore and learn dynamic environments. Also, in
real-world applications, the robot has to coordinate with other
robots in the system for efficient and collision-free traversal
and the algorithm needs to be versatile. But there is the issue
of which car needs to move first for hassle-free traversal.
For example, multiple autonomous cars moving in a junction
need to communicate with each other to avoid a collision.
This paper proposes a modified A* based search for a
mobile robot to plan a path in given configuration space. To
978-1-7281-3069-9/20/$31.00
2020
c IEEE
M. Senthil Kumaran
Department of EEE
SSN College of Engineering
Chennai, India
senthilkumaranm@ssn.edu.in
avoid the collision of multiple robots in a junction, a priority-
based scheduling algorithm is added. When the robot leaves
the configuration space, encoder based feedback is used to
trace the drift and bring the robot back to its old position.
Image processing techniques have been applied to get
the position of the robot in the configuration space in a
grid-based approach. The robot position and orientation are
determined by using a specific two-colour pattern on the
top of the robot. The FPGA (Nexys 2 Spartan 500 E)
is used to drive the two motors present in the robot and
wireless serial communication is established with the image
processing laptop which sends commands to the actuator.
The static obstacles have been assigned a specific colour and
similarly, image processing is used to determine the location
of the obstacles.
II. R ELATED WORK
In the last few decades, several prototypes were designed
for path planning using various sensors and computer vision-
based techniques.
Adiyabaatar Janchiv et al. [2] worked on Complete Cov-
erage Path Planning algorithm, which divides the whole
configuration space into cells and traverses every part of the
cell, mostly used in cleaning applications. In our research, we
have used a similar grid-based approach, but their algorithm
is time-consuming and does not give the shortest path to
move to the destination, which we have improved.
Peter E. Hart et al. [3] worked on the A* based approach of
path planning which has a better efficiency as it takes heuris-
tics into account and in our research, we have implemented
a modified version of this algorithm.
Heramb Nandkishor Joshi et al. [4] worked on grid-
based A* path planning for autonomous robots using image
processing for a single robot with static obstacles. In our
research, a multi-robot approach with dynamic obstacles was
done.
J. P. van den Berg et al. [5] proposed a priority-based
method of motion planning for any degree-of-freedom robot
which shows better results than usual coordination-based
planning. Due to the motion conflicts in the formation
forming, deadlocks often occurred when the priority based on
traversing distance was applied, so that more time was wasted
for planning new paths. A dynamic priority strategy in [5]
could improve the performance but still not solve the motion
conflicts in the formation forming. Liu et al. [6] proposed
a dynamic priority-based path-planning approach by setting
priority constants to multiple robots and the rate of movement
of robots is based on these constants which has been adopted
in our research.
Abhijeet Ravankar et al. [7] explains about multiple robot-
based obstacle mapping technique, which helps other robots
to update their maps and consider the obstacle while other
robots plan their paths. But the proposed method has not
been tested in real environments, where the different scale
and orientation of the robots matter.
Multi-robot collision avoidance system is discussed in
[8] and this system has various real-time applications like
explored in [9].
III. P ROBLEM S TATEMENT
The robot is a 2D shape (when viewed from overhead cam-
era) that can translate and rotate,maintaining the workspace
2-dimensional. However, C is the special Euclidean group
SE(2) = R2 × SO(2) (where SO(2) is the special orthogonal
group of 2D rotations), and a configuration can be repre-
sented using 3 parameters (x, y, θ).
Given an initial state x(0) = xstart and a desired final
state xgoal , find a time T and a set of controls u : [0,T] →
−
U such that the motion satisfies x(T) = xgoal and q(x(t)) ∈
C free for all t ∈ [0,T]. (where ‘q’ takes into account the
admissible constraints which are functions of the state of the
robot).
IV. M ETHODOLOGY
A feasible path needs to be planned between the start point
and the endpoint for the robots to traverse. The start point is
the current location of the robot and the endpoint is given by
the user. Here, the points refer to the number of grids that
the configuration space has been divided. There are various
path planning algorithms and, in this research, A* algorithm
is used to plan the path.
A. A* Algorithm:
A grid-based search algorithm is used to find the shortest
path between the current position of the robot and the end-
point indicated by the user. The algorithm has been modified
for dynamic obstacle avoidance as well. The algorithm uses
cost to determine the shortest path and the cost is based on
two values: g value and h value. The cost to move from
any one square of the grid to the start point is the g value,
whereas the cost to move from any one square of the grid
to the endpoint is the h value. The total cost i.e.,f value, is
calculated by the addition of these two values. Therefore, the
f value is calculated for all the squares in the grids, as shown
in Eqn. (1).
f value = gvalue + hvalue (1)
f value = estimated minimum cost of the cell between all
the paths from start node to the goal node forced to go
through the node n.
g value = the actual cost function from start node to the
current expanding node n.
h value = the actual cost function from any given node to
the end node.
The path is then planned by moving on the grids with the
least f value as shown in the Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Path planning in a grid
B. Image Processing
An overhead camera is used for getting images of the
configuration space. These images are read using OpenCV in
Python. An initial image is taken to determine the position
and orientation of the robots. There are two colours present
on top of the robots, one of rectangular shape (red) and the
other is of circular shape (yellow). The position is found
out by using colour thresholding technique. The image is
converted from RGB to HSV colour space and the threshold
values for red and yellow were determined using the colour
test. Bit-wise operations are performed to mask the position
of the robots alone and by determining the number and
position of non-zero pixels in the mask, the position of the
robots is found.
Once the position of the robots is determined, it is
necessary to know about their orientation for giving
corresponding actuator signals. To determine the orientation
or the direction of the robot, corner detection is used. Two
distant corners are detected in the red rectangle and one
corner is detected in the yellow circle. The row and column
value of these pixels are compared to find the direction
and angle of the robot. Filtering technique like blurring
and averaging is used to remove the noises in the image
for better corner detection and eventually orientation of the
robot. The blurring technique uses a kernel K, as shown in
the matrix of size 3x3 in Eqn. (2). The average of all the
pixels in this kernel area is taken and the central pixel is
replaced with this average value.
 
1/9 1/9 1/9
K = 1/9 1/9 1/9 (2)
1/9 1/9 1/9
Morphological operations such as erosion and dilation are
also performed on the binary image to remove the noises
and determine the robot position precisely. Erosion requires
a kernel that slides over the image and the pixel value will
be a 1, if all the pixels under this kernel is 1, else it is a 0.
Dilation is opposite to erosion.
C. Microcontroller Interface
After the path from the start point to the endpoint for both
the robots has been found, the actuator signals need to be sent
from Python to the microcontroller in the robot, in this case,
FPGA. Wireless serial communication is established using
Bluetooth [10] between the computer and the FPGA in the
robots. The block diagram of the microcontroller interface is
as shown in Fig.2.
D. Priority-based scheduling
When there are multiple robots in the same configuration
space, there are higher chances that the path of the robots
might intersect. To avoid mutual collision between these
robots and to efficiently mobilise the robots, each of the
robots present in the configuration space are given a priority
constant [6].
In case the paths of the robots are intersecting in a cross
junction, based on priority, the robot with the higher priority
constant is made to travel faster than the one with lower
priority. Once the intersection point is crossed, both the
robots travel faster.
E. Encoder-based motion feedback
There are situations where a dynamic obstacle can make
the robot to move out of the configuration space. Usually, it
is impossible to bring the robot back into the configuration
space and move it to the destination as the observability of
the system is zero. In this research, we use encoder-based
feedback which continuously maps the motor revolutions and
gives it as feedback to FPGA. When the robot is not visible
in the configuration space, these encoder values are used
to traverse back into the configuration space from where it
drifted, and the path is re-planned from this point.
The complete working is as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 2. Block diagram of microcontroller interface

The FPGA is interfaced with a motor driver circuit which

controls the speed and direction of the motor and acts as
a microcontrolling unit. Python, after determining the path,
position and orientation of the robots, infers the motion
of both the robots and sends corresponding data to the
FPGA present in the robots. This data is interpreted by
the FPGA and the speed and direction of the motors are
controlled such that both the robots move from start point
to the endpoint.The position and orientation of the robot are
continuously monitored and updated by the overhead camera.
If both the robots require to move to the same grid location,
then one of the robots stops and moves only after the other
robot crosses the path. This action is controlled by Python
by sending corresponding actuator signal data. An ultrasonic
sensor is also interfaced with the microcontroller. This is used
to avoid dynamic obstacles in the path. If the robot encounters
an obstacle suddenly, it waits for the obstacle to move. If the
obstacle remains stationary, a new path is planned from the
current position to the endpoint and the robot follows the
new path. Fig. 3. Flowchart
 V. E XPERIMENTS AND R ESULTS
The image from the camera is split into grids, as shown in
Fig. 4. These grids are utilized for tracking the position of the
robot, obstacles, start point and endpoint in the configuration
space. The path is shown on both the image as well as on
the grid. These grids aid us by giving a defined co-ordinate
of reference to where the mobile robot is located. The path
planning for both the robots from the start point to endpoint
is shown in Fig. 5. The red coloured circle indicates the start
point; the green coloured circle indicates the endpoint; the
blue coloured circle indicates obstacles and the yellow lines
indicate the planned path.
Fig. 6. Colour thresholding and masking

can be found from the velocity-time graph as shown in Fig.

7. These values can be found in Table I. It can be seen that
the two robots move at the same velocity until the point of
intersection, where the robot-1 with higher value of priority
constant moves faster than the robot-2.

Fig. 4. Image split into grids

Fig. 7. Velocity-time graph of robots

TABLE I
T IME TAKEN ( IN SECONDS ) FOR BOTH ROBOTS ALONG WITH THEIR
PRIORITY CONSTANT

Robot Priority constant Time taken to traverse destination

Robot-1 1.7 14
Robot-2 0.9 16

Fig. 5. Path Planning Encoder-based motion feedback involves the mapping of

encoder pulses to find out the magnitude of drifting from the
The colour thresholding and masking to determine the
configuration space. Table II consists of the data of distance
position of the robot and the obstacles are as shown in Fig.
drifted from configuration space and time taken for getting
6. The position of the robot is updated continuously based
back to the drifting point by the mobile robot.
on camera feedback.
The practical implementation of a priority-based schedul-
TABLE II
ing algorithm involves setting a priority constant for the T OTAL DISTANCE DRIFTED FROM CONFIGURATION SPACE AND TIME
robots well in advance. The value of priority constant varies TAKEN TO RETURN TO DRIFTED POINT
directly to the velocity of the robot and inversely to the Encoder value (pulse per revolution) Distance (cm) Time (secs)
traversal time of the robot. For robot-1, the priority constant 4000 15 6.60
is set as 1.7, while the priority constant is set as 0.9 for robot- 8000 30 11.20
2. The time taken by the robot for traversal to the destination 12000 45 19.10
 After conducting the above experiment, another approach
to reducing the drift was established. The error value gets
accumulated as the robot drifts out of the configuration space.
This error value is then multiplied to the voltage of the motor
with the opposite sign for the motors to rotate in the opposite
direction to the deviation, which results in minimum value of
drift from the configuration space. This error accumulating
approach has drastically reduced the drift and it can be
inferred from Table III.
TABLE III
T OTAL DISTANCE DRIFTED FROM CONFIGURATION SPACE AND TIME
TAKEN TO RETURN TO DRIFTED POINT CONSIDERING ERROR
ACCUMULATION
Encoder value (pulse per revolution) Distance (cm) Time (secs)
1333 5 3.42
1866 7 4.8
2133 8 5.2
The complete prototype of the mobile robots developed is
as shown in Fig. 8. Different coloured strips are present on
the mobile robots to determine the orientation. The results
of this multiple robot system give us an idea about dynamic
path-planning with ease.
Fig. 8. Prototype of the mobile robots
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we describe an efficient dynamic path-
planning approach for multi-robot system. We used an
improved A* based path planning algorithm to plan the
trajectory for each individual robot. When we consider the
real-world applications of robots, practicability in dynamic
environments where unknown and moving obstacles exist
is also a critical issue. To generate more efficient motion,
the robot’s velocity is altered with respect to the priority
constants for hassle-free traversal in intersections. This re-
duces the motion conflicts among the robots. Simulations and
experiments are performed to demonstrate that the proposed
path planner is effective to drive multiple mobile robots to
the destination efficiently.
The novel approach of encoder-based motion feedback has
given satisfactory results when the robot has drifted from the
configuration space. Using the error accumulation to reduce
the drifting from the configuration space has reduced the
overall time taken for the traversal. By this process, traversal
of trajectory without losing the observability of the robot is
achieved.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge Students4Students
(S4S) club, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engi-
neering, SSN college of engineering and SSN management
for their laboratory and financial support provided for this
research. Vignesh Ravikumar and Sriram Shreedharan con-
tributed equally to this research.
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