{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,28]],"date-time":"2026-02-28T04:28:02Z","timestamp":1772252882468,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,24]],"date-time":"2022-03-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1648080000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Robotics"],"abstract":"<jats:p>By combining stochastic variational inference with message passing algorithms, we show how to solve the highly complex problem of navigation and avoidance in distributed multi-robot systems in a computationally tractable manner, allowing online implementation. Subsequently, the proposed variational method lends itself to more flexible solutions than prior methodologies. Furthermore, the derived method is verified both through simulations with multiple mobile robots and a real world experiment with two mobile robots. In both cases, the robots share the operating space and need to cross each other\u2019s paths multiple times without colliding.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/robotics11020038","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,24]],"date-time":"2022-03-24T23:31:43Z","timestamp":1648164703000},"page":"38","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Study of Variational Inference for Flexible Distributed Probabilistic Robotics"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2818-1176","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Malte R\u00f8rmose","family":"Damgaard","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronic Systems, Automation and Control, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6515-5845","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rasmus","family":"Pedersen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronic Systems, Automation and Control, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8282-5932","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thomas","family":"Bak","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronic Systems, Automation and Control, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Thrun, S., Burgard, W., and Fox, D. 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