Comparison of Planned Path and Travelled Path Using ROS Navigation Stack

The main aim of this paper is to study the differences between the planned path and travelled path of a virtual differential drive robot in Gazebo-ROS simulator while using ROS navigation stack. A virtual environment is created in GAZEBO for the simulation. For the path comparison experiment the differential drive robot was autonomously navigated through 4 fixed destinations in the environment using a python program. Another python code running alongside will record the coordinates of the planned and actual paths and the coordinates were plotted to get the path. Multiple scenarios are tested with dynamic obstacles placed in different positions. Travelled time through these destinations using manual control for each case was also recorded for references.