Managing the Dynamics of a Harmonic Potential Field-Guided Robot in a Cluttered Environment

This paper demonstrates the ability of the harmonic potential field (HPF) planning method to generate a well-behaved constrained path for a robot with second order dynamics in a cluttered environment. It is shown that HPF-based controllers may be developed for holonomic, as well as nonholonomic, robots to effectively suppress the effect of inertial forces on the robot's trajectory while maintaining all the attractive features of a purely kinematic HPF planner. The capabilities of the suggested navigation controller are demonstrated using simulation results for the holonomic and nonholonomic cases.