On the Complete Area Coverage Problem of Painting Robots

Recently, we proposed a novel algorithm for painting problems based on the concepts of minimum spanning-tree based approach and triangle mesh to obtain an O(nlog n) complete area coverage path planning algorithm on polygonal surfaces with minimum length, where n is the number of triangles. In this article, we reduced the time complexity to O(n) by modifying the algorithm. Our proposed method adopts a mobile robot which navigates through an arrangement of areas to be covered without energy and time constraints. In the end, this robot will return to the original starting point. According to the performance analysis, our method is proven to be the fastest algorithm with minimum length to solve the complete area coverage planning for painting robots on polygonal surfaces. In addition, the number of turns has been significantly reduced by 30.26% using the scheme of triangle merge.