Abstract
Navigation is an indispensable component of ground and aerial mobile robots. Although there is a plethora of path planning algorithms, most of them generate paths that are not smooth and have angular turns. In many cases, it is not feasible for the robots to execute these sharp turns, and a smooth trajectory is desired. We present ‘ITC: Infused Tangential Curves’ which can generate smooth trajectories for mobile robots. The main characteristics of the proposed ITC algorithm are: (1) The curves are tangential to the path, thus maintaining continuity, (2) The curves are infused in the original global path to smooth out the turns, (3) The straight segments of the global path are kept straight and only the sharp turns are smoothed, (4) Safety is embedded in the ITC trajectories and robots are guaranteed to maintain a safe distance from the obstacles, (5) The curvature of ITC curves can easily be controlled and smooth trajectories can be generated in real-time, (6) The ITC algorithm smooths the global path on a part-by-part basis thus local smoothing at one point does not affect the global path. We compare the proposed ITC algorithm with traditional interpolation based trajectory smoothing algorithms. Results show that, in case of mobile navigation in narrow corridors, ITC paths maintain a safe distance from both walls, and are easy to generate in real-time. We test the algorithm in complex scenarios to generate curves of different curvatures, while maintaining different safety thresholds from obstacles in vicinity. We mathematically discuss smooth trajectory generation for both 2D navigation of ground robots, and 3D navigation of aerial robots. We also test the algorithm in real environments with actual robots in a complex scenario of multi-robot collision avoidance. Results show that the ITC algorithm can be generated quickly and is suitable for real-world scenarios of collision avoidance in narrow corridors.
Highlights
It is well understood that, in the near future, mobile robots will replace many works currently done manually by people
We propose the algorithm as a ‘smoothing extension‘ for already existing algorithms to smooth out the sharp turns
We presented a new algorithm called ITC for smooth trajectory generation for mobile robot robots
Summary
It is well understood that, in the near future, mobile robots will replace many works currently done manually by people. The robot must avoid collision with these static and dynamic obstacles For this purpose, mobile robots have a path planning module to generate collision free trajectories from the start to the goal location. We present an algorithm that can smooth the sharp turns of any traditional path planners while ensuring navigational safety. Our approach induces smooth curves thay are tangential to the original path This tangentiality is important to enable robot navigation at a constant speed. We thoroughly improve the previous work through mathematical formations, proofs, safe navigation, generating trajectories of specific curvatures, more experiments in both simulation and real world scenarios, and a detailed analysis. The straight segments of the global path are kept straight and only the sharp turns are smoothed This is advantageous to keep a safe distance from the walls while navigating a narrow corridor. We present ITC as a smoothing extension that can work in conjunction with any of the traditional path planners
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