The vector field histogram-fast obstacle avoidance for mobile robots
01 Jan 1991-Vol. 7, Iss: 3, pp 278-288
TL;DR: A real-time obstacle avoidance method for mobile robots which has been developed and implemented, named the vector field histogram (VFH), permits the detection of unknown obstacles and avoids collisions while simultaneously steering the mobile robot toward the target.
Abstract: A real-time obstacle avoidance method for mobile robots which has been developed and implemented is described. This method, named the vector field histogram (VFH), permits the detection of unknown obstacles and avoids collisions while simultaneously steering the mobile robot toward the target. The VFH method uses a two-dimensional Cartesian histogram grid as a world model. This world model is updated continuously with range data sampled by onboard range sensors. The VFH method subsequently uses a two-stage data-reduction process to compute the desired control commands for the vehicle. Experimental results from a mobile robot traversing densely cluttered obstacle courses in smooth and continuous motion and at an average speed of 0.6-0.7 m/s are shown. A comparison of the VFN method to earlier methods is given. >
Citations
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TL;DR: This approach, designed for mobile robots equipped with synchro-drives, is derived directly from the motion dynamics of the robot and safely controlled the mobile robot RHINO in populated and dynamic environments.
Abstract: This approach, designed for mobile robots equipped with synchro-drives, is derived directly from the motion dynamics of the robot. In experiments, the dynamic window approach safely controlled the mobile robot RHINO at speeds of up to 95 cm/sec, in populated and dynamic environments.
2,886 citations
Cites background or methods or result from "The vector field histogram-fast obs..."
...Most of these local approaches generate motion commands for the robot in two separate stages [1, 2, 8]....
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...In [2], the vector eld histogram approach is proposed, which extends the previously developed virtual force eld histogram [1]....
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...As far as it can be judged from a single example (which is all that is available in [1, 2]), our results compare favorably to those of Borenstein et al....
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...report that their robot traveled with an average speed of 58 cm/sec through a cluttered environment [1, 2]....
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Book•
05 Mar 2004
TL;DR: Bringing together all aspects of mobile robotics into one volume, Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots can serve as a textbook or a working tool for beginning practitioners.
Abstract: Mobile robots range from the Mars Pathfinder mission's teleoperated Sojourner to the cleaning robots in the Paris Metro. This text offers students and other interested readers an introduction to the fundamentals of mobile robotics, spanning the mechanical, motor, sensory, perceptual, and cognitive layers the field comprises. The text focuses on mobility itself, offering an overview of the mechanisms that allow a mobile robot to move through a real world environment to perform its tasks, including locomotion, sensing, localization, and motion planning. It synthesizes material from such fields as kinematics, control theory, signal analysis, computer vision, information theory, artificial intelligence, and probability theory. The book presents the techniques and technology that enable mobility in a series of interacting modules. Each chapter treats a different aspect of mobility, as the book moves from low-level to high-level details. It covers all aspects of mobile robotics, including software and hardware design considerations, related technologies, and algorithmic techniques.] This second edition has been revised and updated throughout, with 130 pages of new material on such topics as locomotion, perception, localization, and planning and navigation. Problem sets have been added at the end of each chapter. Bringing together all aspects of mobile robotics into one volume, Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots can serve as a textbook or a working tool for beginning practitioners.
2,414 citations
Cites methods from "The vector field histogram-fast obs..."
...2 Vector field histogram Borenstein, together with Koren, developed the vector field histogram (VFH) [43]....
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Book•
01 Jan 2003TL;DR: This article provides a comprehensive introduction into the field of robotic mapping, with a focus on indoor mapping, and describes and compares various probabilistic techniques, as they are presently being applied to a vast array of mobile robot mapping problems.
Abstract: This article provides a comprehensive introduction into the field of robotic mapping, with a focus on indoor mapping. It describes and compares various probabilistic techniques, as they are presently being applied to a vast array of mobile robot mapping problems. The history of robotic mapping is also detailed, along with an extensive list of open research problems.
1,584 citations
Cites methods from "The vector field histogram-fast obs..."
...This approach has been used in a great number of robotic systems, such as [8, 9, 10, 42, 83, 98, 106, 107]....
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09 Jun 2011
TL;DR: This paper presents a formal approach to reciprocal n-body collision avoidance, where multiple mobile robots need to avoid collisions with each other while moving in a common workspace, and derives sufficient conditions for collision-free motion by reducing the problem to solving a low-dimensional linear program.
Abstract: In this paper, we present a formal approach to reciprocal n-body collision avoidance, where multiple mobile robots need to avoid collisions with each other while moving in a common workspace In our formulation, each robot acts fully independently, and does not communicate with other robots Based on the definition of velocity obstacles [5], we derive sufficient conditions for collision-free motion by reducing the problem to solving a low-dimensional linear program We test our approach on several dense and complex simulation scenarios involving thousands of robots and compute collision-free actions for all of them in only a few milliseconds To the best of our knowledge, this method is the first that can guarantee local collision-free motion for a large number of robots in a cluttered workspace
1,464 citations
Cites background from "The vector field histogram-fast obs..."
...non-moving) [2, 4, 6, 7, 13, 14, 24], and compute an immediate action for the robot that would avert collisions with the obstacle, in many cases taking into account the robot’s kinematics and dynamics....
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01 May 2017
TL;DR: This article proposed an actor-critic model whose policy is a function of the goal as well as the current state, which allows better generalization and generalizes across targets and scenes.
Abstract: Two less addressed issues of deep reinforcement learning are (1) lack of generalization capability to new goals, and (2) data inefficiency, i.e., the model requires several (and often costly) episodes of trial and error to converge, which makes it impractical to be applied to real-world scenarios. In this paper, we address these two issues and apply our model to target-driven visual navigation. To address the first issue, we propose an actor-critic model whose policy is a function of the goal as well as the current state, which allows better generalization. To address the second issue, we propose the AI2-THOR framework, which provides an environment with high-quality 3D scenes and a physics engine. Our framework enables agents to take actions and interact with objects. Hence, we can collect a huge number of training samples efficiently. We show that our proposed method (1) converges faster than the state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning methods, (2) generalizes across targets and scenes, (3) generalizes to a real robot scenario with a small amount of fine-tuning (although the model is trained in simulation), (4) is end-to-end trainable and does not need feature engineering, feature matching between frames or 3D reconstruction of the environment.
1,394 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jun 1991
TL;DR: A new architecture for controlling mobile robots is described, building a robust and flexible robot control system that has been used to control a mobile robot wandering around unconstrained laboratory areas and computer machine rooms.
Abstract: A new architecture for controlling mobile robots is described. Layers of control system are built to let the robot operate at increasing levels of competence. Layers are made up of asynchronous modules that communicate over low-bandwidth channels. Each module is an instance of a fairly simple computational machine. Higher-level layers can subsume the roles of lower levels by suppressing their outputs. However, lower levels continue to function as higher levels are added. The result is a robust and flexible robot control system. The system has been used to control a mobile robot wandering around unconstrained laboratory areas and computer machine rooms. Eventually it is intended to control a robot that wanders the office areas of our laboratory, building maps of its surroundings using an onboard arm to perform simple tasks.
7,759 citations
"The vector field histogram-fast obs..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Brooks, R. A., "A Robust Layered Control System for a Mobile Robot."...
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...Brooks' implementation treats each ultrasonic range reading as a repulsive force vector....
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...By contrast, Brooks [8,9] and Arkin [1] use a potential field method on experimental mobile robots (equipped with a ring of ultrasonic sensors)....
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...Brooks' and Arkin's methods, on the other hand, do not produce a permanent record....
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...The force field method developed by Brooks [8,9] and the similar method developed by Arkin [1], do function in experimental real-time systems, using actual sensory data [8,9]....
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TL;DR: This paper reformulated the manipulator con trol problem as direct control of manipulator motion in operational space—the space in which the task is originally described—rather than as control of the task's corresponding joint space motion obtained only after geometric and geometric transformation.
Abstract: This paper presents a unique real-time obstacle avoidance approach for manipulators and mobile robots based on the artificial potential field concept. Collision avoidance, tradi tionally considered a high level planning problem, can be effectively distributed between different levels of control, al lowing real-time robot operations in a complex environment. This method has been extended to moving obstacles by using a time-varying artificial patential field. We have applied this obstacle avoidance scheme to robot arm mechanisms and have used a new approach to the general problem of real-time manipulator control. We reformulated the manipulator con trol problem as direct control of manipulator motion in oper ational space—the space in which the task is originally described—rather than as control of the task's corresponding joint space motion obtained only after geometric and kine matic transformation. Outside the obstacles' regions of influ ence, we caused the end effector to move in a straight line with an...
6,515 citations
Book•
01 Jul 1990
TL;DR: This paper reformulated the manipulator control problem as direct control of manipulator motion in operational space-the space in which the task is originally described-rather than as control of the task's corresponding joint space motion obtained only after geometric and kinematic transformation.
Abstract: This paper presents a unique real-time obstacle avoidance approach for manipulators and mobile robots based on the artificial potential field concept. Collision avoidance, tradi tionally considered a high level planning problem, can be effectively distributed between different levels of control, al lowing real-time robot operations in a complex environment. This method has been extended to moving obstacles by using a time-varying artificial patential field. We have applied this obstacle avoidance scheme to robot arm mechanisms and have used a new approach to the general problem of real-time manipulator control. We reformulated the manipulator con trol problem as direct control of manipulator motion in oper ational space—the space in which the task is originally described—rather than as control of the task's corresponding joint space motion obtained only after geometric and kine matic transformation. Outside the obstacles' regions of influ ence, we caused the end effector to move in a straight line with an...
3,063 citations
"The vector field histogram-fast obs..." refers background in this paper
...The idea of imaginary forces acting on a robot has been suggested by Khatib [16]....
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...Khatib, O., "Real-Time Obstacle Avoidance for Manipulators and Mobile Robots."...
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...3 Potential Field Methods The idea of imaginary forces acting on a robot has been suggested by Khatib [16]....
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25 Mar 1985
TL;DR: The use of multiple wide-angle sonar range measurements to map the surroundings of an autonomous mobile robot deals effectively with clutter, and can be used for motion planning and for extended landmark recognition.
Abstract: We describe the use of multiple wide-angle sonar range measurements to map the surroundings of an autonomous mobile robot. A sonar range reading provides information concerning empty and occupied volumes in a cone (subtending 30 degrees in our case) in front of the sensor. The reading is modelled as probability profiles projected onto a rasterized map, where somewhere occupied and everywhere empty areas are represented. Range measurements from multiple points of view (taken from multiple sensors on the robot, and from the same sensors after robot moves) are systematically integrated in the map. Overlapping empty volumes re-inforce each other, and serve to condense the range of occupied volumes. The map definition improves as more readings are added. The final map shows regions probably occupied, probably unoccupied, and unknown areas. The method deals effectively with clutter, and can be used for motion planning and for extended landmark recognition. This system has been tested on the Neptune mobile robot at CMU.
1,911 citations
09 Apr 1991
TL;DR: Based on a rigorous mathematical analysis, the authors present a systematic overview and a critical discussion of the inherent problems of potential field methods (PFMs) and developed a new method for fast obstacle avoidance.
Abstract: Based on a rigorous mathematical analysis, the authors present a systematic overview and a critical discussion of the inherent problems of potential field methods (PFMs). The authors previously (1989) developed a PFM called the virtual force field (VFF) method. Much insight has been gained into the strengths and weaknesses of this method. Four distinct drawbacks with PFMs are identified. Because of these drawbacks, the authors abandoned potential field methods and developed a new method for fast obstacle avoidance. This method, called the vector field histogram method, produces smooth, nonoscillatory motion, while sampling time and hardware are identical to those used in the VFF method. >
1,646 citations
"The vector field histogram-fast obs..." refers background or methods in this paper
...While the VFF method provides superior real-time obstacle avoidance for fast mobile robots, some limitations concerning fast travel among densely cluttered obstacles were identified in the course of our experimental work [ 18 ]....
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...Also, based on a rigorous mathematical analysis, [ 18 ] discusses six inherent shortcomings of potential field methods....
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...A critical discussion of both simulated and experimental potential field methods is given in [ 18 ]....
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...Under certain conditions, this process results in oscillatory and unstable motion [17, 18 ]....
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...Our earlier VFF method and other potential field methods, by contrast, lack this ability [ 18 ]....
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