Conflict-Based Search for Connected Multi-Agent Path Finding

Abstract: We study a variant of the multi-agent path finding problem (MAPF) in which agents are required to remain connected to each other and to a designated base. This problem has applications in search and rescue missions where the entire execution must be monitored by a human operator. We re-visit the conflict-based search algorithm known for MAPF, and define a variant where conflicts arise from disconnections rather than collisions. We study optimizations, and give experimental results in which we compare our algorithms with the literature.