Control for mobile robots in the presence of moving objects

The problem of collision-free navigation and guidance for mobile robots is essential to the survival of unmanned terrain vehicles. This communication adds complexity to the guidance problem by introducing moving objects that may cross the desired navigational path of an autonomous vehicle. The vehicle is equipped with sensors that report locations of the moving objects. Speed and direction of each moving object are modeled as random walk processes. An optimization approach that provides for the acceleration or deceleration of the vehicle is developed, as is the duration of the time for which this control must be applied to avoid a collision with moving objects. The constraints on the objective function are given in terms of collision probabilities, and simulation results are presented for a collision-free environment. Implications of this approach for autonomous vehicles are given in terms of the flexibility of path planning