Tightening polytopic constraint in MPC designs for mobile robot navigation

We introduce a new implementation of a standard linear polytopic constraint which allows not only to validate the constraint itself but also to encourage a distance from the system to the boundary (i.e. the edges of the polytope), and hence, is called tightening polytopic constraint. We also present the MPC designs for mobile robots to navigate within a polytopic working zone towards the goal, which employ the proposed tightening constraint. Extensive simulations and comparison with the potential field approach show the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed methods.