Computation of optimal and collisionfree movements for mobile robots

In this paper we present a method for calculating optimal, collisionfree movements for nonholonomic mobile robots. This is formulated as a nonlinear optimal control problem and solved using advanced numerical methods. The concept of artifical potential fields is used for accounting for the obstacles in the environment. Apart from taking advantage of the large body of knowledge from the numerical methods community this has the virtue of facilitating a simple and general problem description. Experiments show that using this method, complex movements can be calculated in a timely fashion.