A 2D chaotic path planning for mobile robots accomplishing boundary surveillance missions in adversarial conditions

• Our method provides unpredictable robot paths for boundary patrol missions.
• The Hénon system is used as a primary source of chaotic dynamics for robot’s path.
• The approach is based on kinematic relative motion concept.
• We proved that the obtained trajectories are chaotic.
• We present three case studies to show the efficiency of our method.

The path-planning algorithm represents a crucial issue for every autonomous mobile robot. In normal circumstances a patrol robot will compute an optimal path to ensure its task accomplishment, but in adversarial conditions the problem is getting more complicated. Here, the robot’s trajectory needs to be altered into a misleading and unpredictable path to cope with potential opponents. Chaotic systems provide the needed framework for obtaining unpredictable motion in all of the three basic robot surveillance missions: area, points of interests and boundary monitoring. Proficient approaches have been provided for the first two surveillance tasks, but for boundary patrol missions no method has been reported yet. This paper addresses the mentioned research gap by proposing an efficient method, based on chaotic dynamic of the Hénon system, to ensure unpredictable boundary patrol on any shape of chosen closed contour.