Multi-Parameter Predictive Model of Mobile Robot’s Battery Discharge for Intelligent Mission Planning in Multi-Robot Systems

The commercially available battery management and mission scheduling systems for fleets of autonomous mobile robots use different algorithms to calculate the current state of charge of the robot’s battery. This information alone cannot be used to predict whether it will be possible for a single robot in the fleet to execute all of the scheduled missions. This paper provides insight into how to develop a universal battery discharge model based on key mission parameters, which allows for predicting the battery usage over the course of the scheduled missions and can, in turn, be used to determine which missions to delegate to other robots in the fleet, or if more robots are needed in the fleet to accomplish the production plan. The resulting model is, therefore, necessary for mission scheduling in a flexible production system, including autonomous mobile robot transportation networks.