An integrated system structure for the path control of mobile robots

Abstract

An important component of intelligent autonomous mobile robots is an on-line path control scheme. Operation in obstructed environments requires "awareness" of obstacles in the workspace, which involves the subtasks of data acquisition and object representation, global path planning, local collision avoidance, and motion control. In order to comply with system specifications, an in-depth understanding of the problem at an abstract level (e.g. environment geometry, robot kinematics and dynamics) as well as at an implementational level (e.g. computational complexity and data transfer between system modules) is indispensable. This paper introduces an integrated system structure comprising global path planning, local collision avoidance and motion control. Basic ideas for each module and considerations for suitable module interaction are presented. The intention is to enhance the understanding of the complex problem of path control of mobile robots.