Design of multi coverage path-planning for collaborative manure-removing robots in dairy barns

Maintaining clean barn floors is essential for dairy farms to ensure animal welfare, reduce disease, and meet environmental regulations. As herd sizes grow and labor availability declines, many farms have adopted autonomous manure-removing robots (MrRs). However, these robots typically operate in isolation, limiting their effectiveness in large or complex barns. This project explores how multiple MrRs can work together to improve cleaning efficiency while minimizing disruption to animals. The primary focus is on optimizing multi-robot coordination through effective task allocation and complete coverage path-planning (CCPP), while minimizing disturbances to cows and maximizing cleaning efficiency. Key challenges included managing cow movement, avoiding robot-cow collisions, distributing cleaning workloads fairly, and ensuring full area coverage without redundancy. Given the ethical and logistical difficulties of real-world experimentation, the study was conducted entirely through advanced simulation. Using the Boderc design methodology, a structured process was followed to identify stakeholder needs, translate them into system requirements, and evaluate potential solutions. A simulation tool was developed to model realistic barn scenarios, including cow behavior and robot interactions. Various coordination strategies, such as splitting the barn into smaller zones or dynamically assigning tasks, were implemented and tested. The results highlight trade-offs between robot efficiency, predictability, and animal welfare. Some strategies improved cleaning speed but increased stress on cows, while others reduced collisions but led to more dirtiness in the barn. These insights provide actionable guidance for robot developers, farm managers, and researchers interested in deploying collaborative robotic systems in agriculture. This work delivers a validated simulation framework and a set of tested strategies that can support future development of intelligent, animal-friendly, and scalable robotic cleaning solutions for dairy farms. v