Roaming stripes: smooth reactive navigation in a partially known environment

Service mobile robots must be able to operate within human populated environments to carry out different tasks, such as surveillance of banks and warehouses, transportation of things, escorting people in exhibitions and museums, etc. The paper describes a novel hybrid approach to mobile robot navigation, which integrates a priori knowledge of the environment with local perceptions in order to carry out the assigned tasks efficiently and safely. Moreover, the system is able to generate smooth trajectories which take into account the kinematic and dynamic constraints on the robot's motion due to its geometrical and physical characteristics.