Sensor-based reactive navigation of a mobile robot through local target switching

Fuzzy reactive control is applied to the automatic navigation of an intelligent mobile robot in an unknown and changing environment. Sensed ranging and relative target position signals are input to the fuzzy controller. The steering angle and the velocity change are inferred to drive the mobile robot. A reactive rule-base governing the robot behaviour is developed. In order to deal with local trapping and oscillating wandering problems, a local target switching scheme is proposed as a front-end processor for the fuzzy reactive controller. Simulation and experiment results are given in the paper.