Real-time obstacle avoidance for multiple mobile robots

Abstract

SUMMARYAn efficient, simple, and practical real time path planning method for multiple mobile robots in dynamic environments is introduced. Harmonic potential functions are utilized along with the panel method known in fluid mechanics. First, a complement to the traditional panel method is introduced to generate a more effective harmonic potential field for obstacle avoidance in dynamically changing environments. Second, a group of mobile robots working in an environment containing stationary and moving obstacles is considered. Each robot is assigned to move from its current position to a goal position. The group is not forced to maintain a formation during the motion. Every robot considers the other robots of the group as moving obstacles and hence the physical dimensions of the robots are also taken into account. The path of each robot is planned based on the changing position of the other robots and the position of stationary and moving obstacles. Finally, the effectiveness of the scheme is shown by modeling an arbitrary number of mobile robots and the theory is validated by several computer simulations and hardware experiments.

Real-Time Obstacle Avoidance for a Swarm of Autonomous Mobile Robots

“…During the last two decades, many authors extended some of them to multiple mobile robots (see for instance [3]). Among these approaches, we find the potential field approach [15,16], the vector filed histogram [4,10], the curvature method [27], and the dynamic window approach [11]. The main advantage of reactive methods is the fact that they are suitable for real-time navigation in unknown environments.…”

Voronoi coverage control with time-driven communication for mobile sensing networks with obstacles

“…Another recent topic of cooperative control is the avoidance problem of multiple obstacles in a mission space [9]. The coverage control can also be applied to a convex space with obstacles [10], [11], [12], [13].…”

Obstacle avoidance in multi-vehicle coordinated motion via stabilization of time-varying sets

“…Perhaps, the most promising approach to obstacle avoidance is the potential field method which has been extensively utilized for mobile robots with static and dynamic obstacles implemented in real time experiments [13], [14], [15] and applied with robust controllers such as sliding mode control law [16].…”