CAMETA: Conflict-Aware Multi-Agent Estimated Time of Arrival Prediction for Mobile Robots

This study presents the conflict-aware multi-agent estimated time of arrival (CAMETA) framework, a novel approach for predicting the arrival times of multiple agents in unstructured environments without predefined road infrastructure. The CAMETA framework consists of three components: a path planning layer generating potential path suggestions, a multi-agent ETA prediction layer predicting the arrival times for all agents based on the paths, and lastly, a path selection layer that calculates the accumulated cost and selects the best path. The novelty of the CAMETA framework lies in the heterogeneous map representation and the heterogeneous graph neural network architecture. As a result of the proposed novel structure, CAMETA improves the generalization capability compared to the state-of-the-art methods that rely on structured road infrastructure and historical data. The simulation results demonstrate the efficiency and efficacy of the multi-agent ETA prediction layer, with a mean average percentage error improvement of 29.5% and 44% when compared to a traditional path planning method (A*) which does not consider conflicts. The performance of the CAMETA framework shows significant improvements in terms of robustness to noise and conflicts as well as determining proficient routes compared to state-of-the-art multi-agent path planners.