Multi-Robot Space-Time Path Planning

Master's Project @ University of Lincoln

June 2025 - September 2025

The Challenge

Coordinating multiple autonomous robots within shared environments is a complex planning problem. Robots must reach their destinations safely while avoiding collisions, deadlocks, and unnecessary waiting at shared junctions. The challenge was to improve overall coordination while maintaining efficient paths for every robot.

My Contributions

For my Master's dissertation, I independently designed and developed a Space-Time Planner that extends an existing Fragment Planner by incorporating temporal awareness into the planning process. To evaluate both approaches fairly, I built a complete Python simulation framework capable of running, visualising, and comparing the behaviour of both planners under identical conditions.

Results

The proposed planner successfully improved robot coordination by reducing waiting time, shortening travel distances, and producing smoother overall navigation compared with the original Fragment Planner. The project demonstrated how scheduling information can significantly improve multi-robot path planning performance in shared environments.

Safety System for Agricultural Robots

JABAS.AI @ University of Lincoln

March 2025 - July 2025

During my MSc in Robotics at the University of Lincoln, I worked on the IRoN-RAS research project in collaboration with JABAS.AI as part of the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems (LCAS). I contributed to the software integration and safety systems of an autonomous agricultural robot designed for real-world field environments.

My Contributions

• Developed and integrated ROS2 software modules for the autonomous robot platform.
• Implemented and tested obstacle detection and emergency stop functionality.
• Integrated hardware and software safety features, including bumper sensors and audiovisual warning systems.
• Applied robotics safety standards, including ISO 12100, ISO 13849 and ISO 18497, during system integration and testing.
• Collaborated with a multidisciplinary team to support hardware–software integration for field deployment.