A biologically inspired homeostatic motion controller for autonomous mobile robots

Abstract

This paper proposes an autonomous motion controller for mobile robots. It combines a biologically inspired motion planner and a nonlinear feedback controller in order to make a simple and practical motion controller in natural unknown environments. The motion planner part is designed in the frame of behavior-based scheme and adopts the biological concept "homeostasis". It plays the role of determining desired temporal target posture and modifying controller's gain parameters. The other nonlinear controller part drives the robot to the given target posture from the planner. As a result, the stable nonlinear feedback controller in ideal obstacle free space becomes practical one in natural environments constrained by obstacles. The proposed controller is simple mainly due to its behavior-based characteristics and stable due to the feedback controller considering robot's physical constraints. Simulated results and some experimental feature for autonomous navigation of the differential drive mobile robot, named "MARI", are shown for the present.