A-Snake: Integration of path planning with control for mobile robots with dynamic constraints

This paper proposes a novel Accompanied Snake (A-Snake) method for robot motion control considering both path planning and motion control simultaneously. The A-Snake is an elastic path generated in real-time for guiding a robot to navigate from its current position to its target position following a reference path, by considering the robot's nonholonomic constraints. A rolling window optimisation is then carried out for time-optimal control along the generated A-snake under the constraints of control input saturation. Thus the proposed A-Snake can control a mobile robot to follow a reference path with optimal time under saturated control inputs. It separates geometric path-following from optimal time control so that the path can be followed accurately with the fastest speed under saturated control inputs. Simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the approach.