Mobile robot navigation

About: Mobile robot navigation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 14713 publications have been published within this topic receiving 263092 citations.

Autonomous navigation of an automated guided vehicle in industrial environments

Abstract: The research presented in this paper approaches the issue of navigation using an automated guided vehicle (AGV) in industrial environments. The work describes the navigation system of a flexible AGV intended for operation in partially structured warehouses and with frequent changes in the floor plant layout. This is achieved by incorporating a high degree of on-board autonomy and by decreasing the amount of manual work required by the operator when establishing the a priori knowledge of the environment. The AGV's autonomy consists of the set of automatic tasks, such as planner, perception, path planning and path tracking, that the industrial vehicle must perform to accomplish the task required by the operator. The integration of these techniques has been tested in a real AGV working on an industrial warehouse environment.

Autonomous navigation system for a mobile robot or manipulator

Abstract: In an autonomous navigation system for a mobile robot or a manipulator which is intended to guide the robot through the workspace to a predetermined target point in spite of incomplete information without colliding with known or unknown obstacles. All operations are performed on the local navigation level in the robot coordinate system. In the course of this, occupied and unoccupied areas of the workspace are appropriately marked and detected obstacles are covered by safety zones. An intermediate target point is defined in an unoccupied area of the workspace and a virtual harmonic potential field is calculated, whose gradient is followed by the robot. Mobile robots with such an autonomous navigation system can be used as automated transport, cleaning and service systems.

A layered goal-oriented fuzzy motion planning strategy for mobile robot navigation

Abstract: Most conventional motion planning algorithms that are based on the model of the environment cannot perform well when dealing with the navigation problem for real-world mobile robots where the environment is unknown and can change dynamically. In this paper, a layered goal-oriented motion planning strategy using fuzzy logic is developed for a mobile robot navigating in an unknown environment. The information about the global goal and the long-range sensory data are used by the first layer of the planner to produce an intermediate goal, referred to as the way-point, that gives a favorable direction in terms of seeking the goal within the detected area. The second layer of the planner takes this way-point as a subgoal and, using short-range sensory data, guides the robot to reach the subgoal while avoiding collisions. The resulting path, connecting an initial point to a goal position, is similar to the path produced by the visibility graph motion planning method, but in this approach there is no assumption about the environment. Due to its simplicity and capability for real-time implementation, fuzzy logic has been used for the proposed motion planning strategy. The resulting navigation system is implemented on a real mobile robot, Koala, and tested in various environments. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed fuzzy navigation system.

A real-time limit-cycle navigation method for fast mobile

Abstract: A mobile robot should be designed to navigate with collision avoidance capability in the real world, flexibly coping with the changing environment. In this paper, a novel limit-cycle navigation method is proposed for a fast mobile robot using the limit-cycle characteristics of a 2nd-order nonlinear function. It can be applied to the robot operating in a dynamically changing environment, such as in a robot soccer system. By adjusting the radius of the motion circle and the direction of obstacle avoidance, the navigation method proposed enables a robot to maneuver smoothly towards any desired destination. Simulations and real experiments using a robot soccer system demonstrate the merits and practical applicability of the proposed method. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 © 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. 18

Experimental validation of the moving long base-line navigation concept

Abstract: This paper presents the moving long base-line (MLBL) navigation concept as well as simulation and experimental results. This multiple vehicle navigation technique consists of using vehicles fitted with accurate navigation systems as moving reference transponders to which other vehicles, fitted with less capable navigation systems, can acoustically range to update their position. Reliable acoustic communications are mandatory for the real time implementation of this navigation scheme. However, while enabling MLBL, acoustic communications reduce the range update rate and introduce delays that need to be dealt with in the navigation algorithm. Simulation results show that relative navigation accuracy between vehicles can be maintained although the absolute navigation accuracy of each vehicle decreases over time. This is a key enabling factor for AOFNC missions where contacts are called by vehicles and re-acquired by other vehicles in real-time.