World Journal of Engineering and Technology, 2023, 11, 965-975

https://www.scirp.org/journal/wjet
ISSN Online: 2331-4249
ISSN Print: 2331-4222

Complete Coverage Path Planning Based on

Improved Area Division

Lihuan Ma1, Zhuo Sun1*, Yuan Gao2

Transportation Engineering College, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China

1

School of Maritime Economics and Management, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
2

How to cite this paper: Ma, L.H., Sun, Z. Abstract

and Gao, Y. (2023) Complete Coverage
Path Planning Based on Improved Area It is difficult to solve complete coverage path planning directly in the ob-
Division. World Journal of Engineering structed area. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method of complete
and Technology, 11, 965-975. coverage path planning with improved area division. Firstly, the boustrophe-
https://doi.org/10.4236/wjet.2023.114063
don cell decomposition method is used to partition the map into sub-regions.
Received: April 5, 2023 The complete coverage paths within each sub-region are obtained by the
Accepted: November 27, 2023 Boustrophedon back-and-forth motions, and the order of traversal of the
Published: November 30, 2023
sub-regions is then described as a generalised traveling salesman problem
with pickup and delivery based on the relative positions of the vertices of each
sub-region. An adaptive large neighbourhood algorithm is proposed to
quickly obtain solution results in traversal order. The effectiveness of the im-
proved algorithm on traversal cost reduction is verified in this paper through
multiple sets of experiments.

Keywords
Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem with Pickup and Delivery, Complete
Coverage Path Planning, Boustrophedon Cellular Decomposition, Adaptive
Large-Neighborhood Search Algorithm, Mobile Robot

1. Introduction
With the development of the field of artificial intelligence in recent years, robot-
ics as its representative product has been applied to various industries. Complete
coverage path planning (CCPP) [1] is an important part of robot path planning
research, which is the design of a path that traverses all areas of the environ-
ment, based on a priori information obtained from a map of the coverage area. It
has a wide range of applications, such as maritime waste cleaning and patrolling,
and path planning for floor sweeping robots.

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L. H. Ma et al.

There are three main 3 types of complete coverage path planning algorithms:
traditional method, grid method and cell decomposition method. Among them,
the boustrophedon cellular decomposition method (BCD) proposed by Choset
[2] effectively reduces the complexity of the complete coverage planning prob-
lem. However, the selection of access order between subregions is not considered.
For the selection of neighboring paths between subregions, Viet HH et al. [3]
treat each subregion as a point and solve the inter-subregions path planning by
solving the travelling salesman problem Zhou Lina et al. [4] traversed the adja-
cency graph with the DFS algorithm to find an exhaustive coverage path availa-
ble for traveling salesman. Huang Jiahao et al. [5] established a sub-region adja-
cency graph based on the ant colony algorithm to solve the problem, which can
quickly and efficiently obtain the visiting sequence of each sub-region. The ex-
isting literatures are solved by establishing the adjacency graph through the rela-
tive location relationship of each sub-region to obtain the access order of
sub-regions, without considering the impact of inter-subregions path planning
on the cost of intra-subregions path planning.
Unlike the existing literature, in this paper, we first partition the map into
subregions according to BCD, and then treat the vertices of these subregions as
entry and exit points. The robot can enter or leave the subregion from any ver-
tex, so the problem of obtaining the visiting sequence of each subregion can be
converted into a problem of the route where the vertices are visited. The robot
can enter or leave the subregion from any vertex, so the problem of obtaining
the order in which the robot visits the subregion can be converted into a prob-
lem of the order in which it visits these vertices. Then this problem can be de-
scribed by the generalized traveling salesman problem with pickup and delivery
(GTSPPD).
Both generalized traveling salesman problem and traveling salesman prob-
lem with pickup and delivery are NP-hard problems. The solving algorithm
mainly consists of two parts: the exact algorithm and the heuristic algorithm.
In terms of exact solutions, VD Šarić et al. converted GTSP into a traveling sa-
lesman problem for solving [6], but the existing solvers for TSP as an NP-Hard
problem are equally difficult to solve for large-scale cases [7]. Exact algorithms
for directly solving the GTSP include branch-and-bound algorithms [8], and
branch-and-cut algorithms [9]. In terms of heuristic algorithm solving, specif-
ic local search algorithms [10], adaptive large neighbourhood algorithms [11],
genetic algorithms [12].
The main contributions of this study are as follows: Firstly, the GTSPPD
model is developed and solved to improve the complete coverage algorithm based
on area division. Secondly, the adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) al-
gorithm is designed for solving the GTSPPD model with respect to its characte-
ristics. Finally, the efficiency of the improved complete coverage path planning
algorithm based on GTSPPD and the superiority of the ALNS algorithm is
demonstrated by the comparison of arithmetic examples.

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 L. H. Ma et al.

2. Problem Description and Mathematical Model

2.1. Description of the Problem
After decomposing the environment map into multiple accessible sub-regions
by BCD, the complete coverage path includes the coverage path within the
sub-region and the transfer path between the different sub-regions. The transfer
path costs of the vertices between different sub-regions are different, while the
different vertices of the sub-region start and end the coverage of the sub-region
will also produce different complete coverage paths, so two different paths need
to be jointly considered for optimization. Thus all vertices of each region are
treated as a cluster. For each sub-region c ∈ C , its internal CCPP can go from
any point of the corresponding cluster to any point of that cluster. The set of
start points is denoted = as Pc { p1 , p2 , …, pc } and the set of end points is de-
noted as= Dc {d1 , d 2 , …, d c } . The set of vertices of all subregions in the network
is denoted as V ′ = ∪ c∈C ( Pc ∪ Dc ) . The set of vertices, including the starting
point, is denoted V = {0} ∪ V ′ = . Let E {(i, j ), i, j ∈ V } be the set of all edges
in the network, if an edge (i, j ) , i ∈ Pc1 , j ∈ Dc2 , c1 = c2 , c1 , c2 ∈ C , The edge
is a complete coverage path within a subregion and the cost is obtained by the
Boustrophedon back-and-forth motions; if an edge (i, j ) , i ∈ Dc1 , j ∈ Pc2 ,
c1 ≠ c2 , the edge is the transfer edge between two subregions and the cost can be
calculated by the A^* algorithm [13]. The transfer cost for both cases is denoted
as dij. if an edge does not satisfy the above two cases, it is a redundant edge add-
ed for modelling convenience considerations and dij is an extreme value M.
At this point the CCPP requires finding the transfer order that minimizes the
total path cost between the scan start point and the scan end point for all
sub-regions, and satisfies the following conditions:
a) The robot starts from the depot 0 and eventually returns to the depot;
b) When visiting a polygon c, one of the start vertices p ∈ Pc is visited and
then one of the end points d ∈ Dc is visited afterwards;
c) Each sub-region needs to be accessed once and only once.

2.2. Mathematical Model

This model belongs to the generalized traveling salesman problem with pickup
and delivery, where the vertices of each subregion are treated as a cluster, the
start vertex is the pickup point, and the end vertex is the delivery point, assum-
ing infinite carrier capacity and cargo size of 1. With xij as the decision varia-
ble indicating whether arc (i,j) is selected and yi as a variable indicating
whether vertex i is visited, the GTSPPD model is built as follows:
minimize ∑ dij xij (1)
i , j∈V

s.t.
∑
= xij ∑
= x ji yi ∀j ∈ V (2)
i∈V ′ ′ i∈V

∑ yi = 1 ∀c ∈ C (3)
i∈Pc

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L. H. Ma et al.

∑ yi = 1 ∀c ∈ C (4)
i∈Dc

∑
= x0 j ∑
= x j0 1 (5)
j∈V ′ ′ j∈V

µ j ≥ µi + 1 − (1 − xij ) ∗ M ∀i, j ∈ V ′, i ≠ j (6)

∑ ∑ xij = 1 ∀c ∈ C (7)
i∈Pc j∈Dc

xij ∈ {0,1} ∀i, j ∈ V (8)

yi ∈ {0,1} ∀i, j ∈ V (9)

µi ≥ 0 ∀i ∈V ′ (10)
The objective function (1) is to minimize the routing cost. Constraints (2) to
(4) indicate that each subregion needs to have one point accessed for both the
start and end point clusters species and only one point can be accessed. Con-
straint (5) indicates that the mobile robots all start from the starting point and
return to the starting point. The purpose of constraint (6) is to eliminate sub-
tour. Constraint (7) ensures the continuity of those start and end points that are
visited within the same cluster. Constraints (8) to (10) define the domains of the
decision variables.

3. Adaptive Large-Neighbourhood Search

The generalized traveling salesman problem with pickup and delivery belongs to
the NP-hard problem, and the running time of taking the exact algorithm to
solve the large-scale cases is too long, so an Adaptive Large Neighborhood
Search algorithm is proposed in this paper for fast solution of this problem [14].

3.1. ALNS Framework

The ALNS algorithm flow is shown in Figure 1.
A high quality initial solution can speed up the algorithm search efficiency, so
that the optimization results can be obtained faster. Therefore, a heuristic algo-
rithm is designed to construct the initial solution in this paper.
The algorithmic procedure of constructing the initial solution by greedy algo-
rithm is as follows:
Step 1: Initialize an empty path S0.
Step 2: Add the depot points to S0. Randomly select a cluster and choose the
two points with the smallest distance to be added to S0. Repeat the process until
all clusters are visited.
Step 3: Add the depot points at the end of S0 to get the initial solution.
Step 4: End.

3.2. Destroy Operators and Repair Operators

In this paper, three destroy operators and four repair operators are designed.
According to the characteristics of GTSPPD, the designed destruction operator

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 L. H. Ma et al.

Figure 1. Flow chart of ALNS algorithm.

returns the customer point to its corresponding cluster after removing it ac-
cording to the specific destruction rules, and the cluster becomes the cluster to
be selected as the object selected by the repair operator. The destroying process
is shown in Figure 2, the first path in the figure indicates the path before de-
stroying, the red dashed line indicates the cluster selected by the destroying op-
erator, and the cluster enters into the area to be selected after removal (the el-
lipse area in the figure). Each destroy operator is described as follows:
Random destroy operator: randomly select a certain number of clusters and
remove both the pickup and delivery points belonging to the cluster in the path.
Worst transfer destroy operator: Remove all the two pickup points and two

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L. H. Ma et al.

delivery points with the highest transfer cost between the two sub-areas.
Complete destroy operator: destroys all vertices in a path.
Depending on the rules, the repair operator can select a cluster from the re-
moved cluster, select the pickup and delivery points in it, and then repair it to
the destroyed path. The repair process is shown in Figure 3. According to the
repair operator, select a cluster from among the set which has the clusters need
to be selected, select two points from the cluster as pickup and delivery points,
and then insert them into the damaged path to form a new complete coverage
path. Each repair operator is described as follows:
Random repair operator: randomly selects the start and end points in the re-
moved cluster to be repaired to a random position in the path.
Best repair operator: selects the start and end points of the removed cluster
with the lowest internal search cost and inserts them as a whole into the location
with the lowest total path cost change.
Lowest cost repair operator: Selects the lowest cost start and end points of the
path from the removed cluster and inserts these two points into the path at ran-
dom. This operator and the best path repair operator can be seen as weaker ver-
sions of the best repair operator, retaining more randomness and enhancing the
ability of the ALNS algorithm to jump out of local optima.
Best path repair operator: randomly selects the start and end points from the
removed clusters and inserts them at the location where the total cost of the path

Figure 2. The destroying process.

Figure 3. The repairing process.

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 L. H. Ma et al.

changes the least.

3.3. Adaptive Strategy

Adaptive weights: After a new path is obtained in each iteration using the de-
stroy and repair operators, the formula for calculating the score of the removal
and placement operator used is as follows:
distance( S ) − distance( Snew )
score = max{ , 0} (11)
distance( S )

The formula calculates the latest score of the used operator by the degree of
improvement of the newly generated paths over the old ones, using a selection of
0 with the maximum of the new scores to ensure that no negative values are
generated. A new weight value is then calculated at the end of that round of ite-
rations based on the score, with the new weight value being the weight value of
b(b ∈ (0,1)) plus the score of the operator of (1-b). In this paper the initial
weights and the initial score are both 1. The choice of which destroy and repair
operator to use is based on the weights in the form of a standard roulette wheel.
Acceptance function: In addition to directly retaining the result that is better
than the current optimal solution, the result can also be retained and used as the
initial solution for the next operation when it satisfies the acceptance function.
The probability of a new path being accepted is
min{exp ((distance( S ) − distance( Snew ) / T ),1} , T is the current temperature T in
simulated annealing.

4. Case Studies and Sensitivity Analysis

In this section, different sized arithmetic cases are generated for solving and
analyzing the results according to the different working environments that the
mobile robot may encounter. Each algorithm is named by serial number—
number of clusters—number of vertices—grid precision. All algorithms in this
section are programmed and implemented in Python 3.9, with Win10 operating
system, 2.90 GHz CPU and 16 GB RAM.

4.1. Case Analysis

In order to verify the effectiveness of the improved algorithm, first the results
obtained by the improved algorithm were compared with the Boustrophedon
completecoverage algorithm [5] with the generated paths in a small-scale case.
After that, in order to verify the effectiveness of the model with the ALNS algo-
rithm, experiments with different scale cases were conducted. In this paper, the
Gurobi algorithm is used to solve the GTSPPD model and the ALNS algorithm
to solve the GTSPPD model with the Boustrophedon complete coverage algo-
rithm for different scale comparison experiments, respectively.

4.1.1. Analysis of Results

Firstly, experiments are conducted in a small-scale algorithm. In this paper, a 20

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L. H. Ma et al.

× 20 grid map with obstacles is randomly generated, and each grid has a length
and width of 1, where black is the obstacle. The improved area decomposition
algorithm based on the GTSPPD model with Boustrophedon complete coverage
algorithm is based on the environment map after cell decomposition to solve the
complete coverage path, and the map is decomposed by the swept string parti-
tioning method to obtain 11 subregions. The solution results of the improved al-
gorithm with Boustrophedon complete coverage algorithm are shown in Figure 4.
The improved algorithm gives a total path distance of 393.1 and the Boustro-
phedon complete coverage algorithm gives a total path distance of 439.4. In
complete coverage path planning, transfer paths used for other than coverage are
often generated due to factors such as obstacle avoidance, and this part of the
path includes both sub-region transfer paths and the part of repeated coverage
within sub-regions, so this part of the path can be regarded as non-working
paths. Compared with the paths obtained by Boustrophedon complete coverage
algorithm, the improved algorithm results in 28.1 non-working paths transferred
between different regions, while the non-working paths obtained by Boustro-
phedon complete coverage algorithm is 74.4, and the non-working path distance
is reduced by 62.2%.

4.1.2. Model and Algorithm Performance Validation

In order to verify the effectiveness of the model and algorithm at different scales,
this subsection generates 10 arithmetic cases of different scales from small to
large on grid maps with different accuracies. And according to these 10 cases,
experiments are conducted, in which the results obtained by the improved algo-
rithm of solving the GTSPPD model by Gurobi solver, the improved algorithm
of solving the GTSPPD model by ALNS algorithm and Boustrophedon complete

Figure 4. Comparison of Complete coverage path planning result.

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 L. H. Ma et al.

coverage algorithm are compared for each case. The solution results are shown
in Table 1. Time in the table indicates the time required for the algorithm to
solve out the subinterval access order, and the solver's solution time is limited to
1800 s, and bold indicates the minimum cost as well as the shortest solution time
obtained by different solving methods. The ALNS algorithm in the table solves
the algorithm when it is a large-scale algorithm, and the solution time is all within
3 minutes, and the computation time is acceptable in the heuristic algorithm.
The difference between the results obtained by the ALNS algorithm and those
obtained by Gurobi is very small, and in some cases the results are even the
same. As the size of the solution increases, the GTSPPD model solution is not
guaranteed to be optimal in the required time, and even in the largest cases the
results are inferior to those obtained by the ALNS algorithm. In terms of solu-
tion time, except for the smallest accuracy cases, the solution time of the ALNS
algorithm is much smaller than that of the GTSPPD model. This proves the ef-
fectiveness of the ALNS algorithm: results with higher accuracy can be obtained
in a shorter time.
In all cases, the improved algorithm outperforms the Boustrophedon com-
plete coverage algorithm, except for the 1-4-16-10 cases where the results are the
same as the Boustrophedon complete coverage algorithm, and the difference in
results becomes more pronounced as the size of the cases increases. Although
the time is longer compared to the Boustrophedon algorithm, this computation-
al time difference is negligible compared to the actual working time.
The above results show the total path cost and the comparison results of the
non-working path cost obtained by the improved algorithm with Boustrophedon
complete coverage algorithm are shown in Table 2.
The results for the non-working paths in the above 10 cases are shown in Ta-
ble 2, and the GAP calculation formulae in the table are as follows:
=GAP ( DBoustrophedon − DGTSP ) / DBoustrophedon . where DBoustrophedon is the non-working

Table 1. Comparison of total path distances of different algorithms.

Name Gurobi Time (s) ALNS Time (s) Boustrophedon Time (s)

1-4-16-10 70.8 0.09 70.8 1.41 70.8 0.5

2-7-26-20 348.2 1.13 348.2 2.58 367.4 0.39

3-9-36-40 1417 29.79 1417 3.58 1446.9 0.75

4-10-40-50 2163.8 20.25 2163.8 4.05 2216.6 0.76

5-11-44-50 2077.6 1357.53 2077.6 5.89 2144.4 1.67

6-12-48-100 10,117.3 1800 10,117.3 6.16 10,236.1 2.26

7-15-60-100 8135 1800 8134.6 8.47 8312.8 2.13

8-16-64-100 8299.5 1800 8299.5 9.59 8488 2.24

9-27-108-100 8342.5 1800 8373.4 28.89 8730.2 3.80

11-52-208-100 10,223.8 1800 10,143 169.89 10,755 11.37

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L. H. Ma et al.

distance of the complete coverage path obtained by Boustrophedon complete

coverage algorithm. From the table, it can be seen that the non-working paths
obtained by the improved algorithm are effectively reduced compared to the
Boustrophedon complete coverage algorithm, and in general this trend becomes
more pronounced as the case size increases, with a maximum reduction of
63.95%. The results in Table 1 and Table 2 show that the results obtained by the
GTSPPD model are significantly better than those obtained by Boustrophedon.
These arithmetic examples fully demonstrate the superiority of the improved
algorithm in this paper.

Table 2. Comparison of non-working path distance results.

Name GTSPPD Boustrophedon GAP (%)

1-4-16-10 2.8 2.8 0

2-7-26-20 22.2 41.4 46.38

3-9-36-40 70 99 29.29

4-10-40-50 92.8 145.6 36.26

5-11-44-50 127.6 194.4 34.36

6-12-48-100 203.30 322.1 36.88

7-15-60-100 265.60 443.8 40.15

8-16-64-100 250.50 439 42.94

9-27-108-100 223.50 611.2 63.43

11-52-208-100 345 957 63.95

5. Concluding Remarks
In this paper, to solve the complete coverage path planning problem, a genera-
lized traveling salesman problem model with pickup and delivery is proposed to
jointly optimize the intra-traversal and inter-regional transfer paths for each
sub-region according to the total cost. An ALNS algorithm for solving the prob-
lem is also developed for fast solution of the model. The effectiveness of the im-
proved algorithm for solving the complete coverage problem is demonstrated
through case studies.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this pa-
per.

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