Motion planning for wheeled mobile robot using potential field method

Abstract

A potential field method in the real-time approach toward avoidance of obstacles for a mobile robot has been developed. A collision-free path and goal-seeking behaviour are calculated using an artificial potential field method. The proposed reactive navigation approach is based on the coordination of elementary responses. To avoid convex obstacles, the navigator generates a ''reaching the middle of the collision-free space'' and goal-seeking behaviours. A control strategy based on artificial potential fields that generates a trajectory to be followed by a mobile robot that represents a reference for the robot at the same time is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is numerically verified by a series of experiments on the emulator of the wheeled mobile robot Pioneer-2DX.