Described herein are systems and methods for operating a mobile robot in an environment according to a coverage path generated using an environment map. The path includes a set of linear path segments connected by a number of turns therebetween, and the path minimizes or reduces the number of turns that the robot makes as it traverses the environment. An exemplary system includes at least one controller that partitions the environment map into regions with respective orientations based on the region's dimensional information and neighboring regions' properties, decomposes the regions into parallel ranks, and generates a coverage path using the ranks. One or more mobile robots can accomplish designated missions such as cleaning in the environment when moving along their respectively identified path.