Addressing collision avoidance and nonholonomic constraints of a wheeled robot: Modeling and simulation

This paper presents kinematic model of two configurations of a wheeled mobile robot. Two-wheeled robot with castor and four-wheeled robot are considered for modeling. Kinematic equations, modeled in MATLAB/Simulink, represent the position and angle of the mobile robots. Simulation results illustrate the actual trajectory followed by the `soft' robot. The potential use of the derived kinematic model is two folds; in research as well as in academia. The model can be employed to test and validate advanced algorithms related with mobile robots e.g. for collision avoidance, path-planning, navigation etc while in an educational environment, it can assist students to study the behavior and nonholonomic constraints of their robots prior to their fabrication for competitions. As a case study to demonstrate the application of the developed model, the present research proposed a novel collision avoidance algorithm named as Intelligent Bug Algorithm (IBA). Preliminary comparative results dictate that IBA outperforms the reported Bug algorithms.