Multiple Unmanned Ground Vehicles Cooperative Trajectory Planning with Flexible Safety Guarantees

The growing demand for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in various applications necessitates the development of efficient trajectory planning techniques that can ensure both safety and cooperative behavior. This paper presents a novel approach for multi-UGV cooperative trajectory planning with flexible safety guarantees. The proposed method addresses the challenge of finding safe trajectories for multiple UGVs by incorporating risk assessment into the planning process. A field-based risk assessment model is used to quantify the risk levels between UGVs, and a predefined threshold is adopted to define risk conflicts. To solve the cooperative trajectory planning problem, an interactive trajectory planning approach is introduced. It combines path planning with trajectory validation to ensure safety and address the risk conflicts. Vehicle characteristics are considered in the planning process. The simulation results show that the proposed interactive trajectory planning algorithm achieves a high success rate while maintaining a maximal risk level below a predefined threshold. It also outperforms the benchmark algorithms in terms of safety performance, with reduced risk levels and improved adaptability to varying conditions.