Obstacle Detection and Avoidance for Mobile Robots

Abstract

This report details the work performed over five months for a bachelor’s thesis at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The project presents an obstacle avoidance plug-in module for a laser scanner application. A common wavefront algorithm is used for path planning and a fixed cell size grid map is used for the internal representation of the environment. The fundamental parts of the obstacle avoidance functionality are first tested in simulated environments, and ultimately the entire system is tested on a differential-drive robot mounted with a laser scanner, in three different scenarios. The report concludes that, under the given conditions, the plugin proves to effectively complete the proposed test missions while avoiding obstacles.