Obstacle avoidance using active window and flexible vector field with a laser range finder

Abstract

Since there are sudden changes of the obstacles such as market shelves and people at a market, we need to develop sensitive obstacle avoidance algorithm to deal with the change of the map data around the robot for achieving safety among people and the mobile robot. This paper considers the obstacle avoidance algorithm based on the flexible vector field and the active window. The main idea of this approach is to improve the accuracy of the obstacle avoidance algorithm at the narrow passageway using the active window, virtual circle, a straight line, and a tangential line. It also controls the mobile robot for tracking the shortest path to the desired goal position simultaneously. These results are confirmed through analytical and experimental performance evaluation.