Frontier-Based Exploration for Multi-Robot Rendezvous in Communication-Restricted Unknown Environments

Multi-robot rendezvous and exploration are fun- damental challenges in the domain of mobile robotic systems. This paper addresses multi-robot rendezvous within an initially unknown environment where communication is only possible after the rendezvous. Traditionally, exploration has been fo- cused on rapidly mapping the environment, often leading to suboptimal rendezvous performance in later stages. We adapt a standard frontier-based exploration technique to integrate exploration and rendezvous into a unified strategy, with a mechanism that allows robots to re-visit previously explored regions thus enhancing rendezvous opportunities. We validate our approach in 3D realistic simulations using ROS, showcasing its effectiveness in achieving faster rendezvous times compared to exploration strategies.