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Main Author: Villasmil, Javier González
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14799
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author Villasmil, Javier González
author_facet Villasmil, Javier González
contents Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) remains a fundamental challenge in robotics, where classical centralized approaches exhibit exponential growth in joint-state complexity as the number of agents increases. This paper investigates Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) as a structurally scalable alternative for simultaneous multi-robot path planning. This approach is a robotics-oriented QUBO formulation incorporating BFS-based logical pre-processing (achieving over 95% variable reduction), adaptive penalty design for collision and constraint enforcement, and a time-windowed decomposition strategy that enables execution within current hardware limitations. An experimental evaluation in grid environments with up to four robots demonstrated near-optimal solutions in dense scenarios and favorable scaling behavior compared to sequential classical planning. These results establish a practical and reproducible baseline for future quantum and quantum-inspired multi-robot coordinations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_14799
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Scalable Multi-Robot Path Planning via Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization
Villasmil, Javier González
Robotics
Quantum Physics
90C27, 68T40
I.2.9; G.1.6
Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) remains a fundamental challenge in robotics, where classical centralized approaches exhibit exponential growth in joint-state complexity as the number of agents increases. This paper investigates Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) as a structurally scalable alternative for simultaneous multi-robot path planning. This approach is a robotics-oriented QUBO formulation incorporating BFS-based logical pre-processing (achieving over 95% variable reduction), adaptive penalty design for collision and constraint enforcement, and a time-windowed decomposition strategy that enables execution within current hardware limitations. An experimental evaluation in grid environments with up to four robots demonstrated near-optimal solutions in dense scenarios and favorable scaling behavior compared to sequential classical planning. These results establish a practical and reproducible baseline for future quantum and quantum-inspired multi-robot coordinations.
title Scalable Multi-Robot Path Planning via Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization
topic Robotics
Quantum Physics
90C27, 68T40
I.2.9; G.1.6
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14799