IAES International Journal of Robotics and Automation (IJRA)
Vol 15, No 3: September 2026

Cost-aware global frontier matching for ROS 2 multi-robot exploration

Chu Van Cuong (Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology)
Tran Tuan Anh (Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Sep 2026

Abstract

Multi-robot frontier exploration supports warehouse mapping and inspection robotics, but geometric assignment can produce overlapping motion and inefficient target pairing. This paper presents a ROS 2 frontier-allocation layer that combines a weighted frontier cost with global one-to-one matching. The study isolates global matching from sequential assignment while keeping the cost formulation and ROS 2 execution stack fixed. Three policies are evaluated on two indoor maps, four team sizes, and three seeds. Across 72 completed main-policy runs, global matching gives the lowest mean completion time, travelled distance, path overlap, and assignment conflict. Relative to sequential cost-based assignment, it reduces completion time by 24.3%, travelled distance by 14.2%, and path overlap by 65.8%, with lower final coverage under the same stopping rule. The results support a coordination-efficiency benefit in the tested ROS 2 simulations; broader claims require larger, heterogeneous, dynamic, and physical deployments.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

IJRA

Publisher

Subject

Automotive Engineering Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Description

Robots are becoming part of people's everyday social lives and will increasingly become so. In future years, robots may become caretaker assistants for the elderly, or academic tutors for our children, or medical assistants, day care assistants, or psychological counselors. Robots may become our ...