Body-aware Local Navigation for Asymmetric Holonomic Robots using Control Barrier Functions

In this article, we propose a body-aware local navigation strategy for asymmetric holonomic robots for collision-free navigation in narrow pathways with sharp turns. In such scenarios, a robot with non-circular or asymmetric footprint that is comparable to the dimension of the pathways collides with walls when tracking Voronoi paths or risk-aware paths. This problem is addressed in this article through a novel multi-control barrier functions (CBF) based control strategy that achieves the objective of safe collision-free maneuvering at sharp turns. The proposed method is significantly computationally light in comparison to approaches based on model predictive control and online occupancy-grid based free-space and collision detection. In the proposed approach, a minimal set of parameters that characterize a sharp turn and the robot footprint are used to define six control barrier functions that define safe and unsafe regions of operation for a robot. A quadratic programming based CBF safety filter is designed that takes a nominal goal-reaching control as input and returns a minimally-deviating output that enforces the control barrier constraints and renders the safe set forward invariant throughout the turning maneuver. The three kinematic control inputs of the holonomic robot are shared in a conflict-free manner among the six control barrier constraints. The proposed local navigation approach was thoroughly validated in multiple scenarios in a simulated environment, where a robot with asymmetric footprint achieves collision-free maneuvering along multiple sharp turns, while respecting the safety and actuation constraints.