Adding obstacle avoidance to a robotic platform for human robot interaction

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the development and current state of an inexpensive platform for educational purposes and research in human robot interaction. The platform is based on the ubiquitous LabVIEW programming language and an in-house developed two degree of freedom non-holonomic robot. The platform includes multiple interaction modalities between the robot and the user. In this paper, we will describe the procedures followed for the successful software and hardware implementation and demonstration of an obstacle avoidance path planning algorithm thus augmenting the existing modalities. The algorithm uses a vision system to identify the location and size of an obstacle and generate the robot path to reach a desired goal while avoiding the obstacle. Current research focuses on algorithm development and implementation of path planning in the presence of multiple obstacles.