A new analytical solution to mobile robot trajectory generation in the presence of moving obstacles

The problem of determining a collision-free path for a mobile robot moving in a dynamically changing environment is addressed in this paper. By explicitly considering a kinematic model of the robot, the family of feasible trajectories and their corresponding steering controls are derived in a closed form and are expressed in terms of one adjustable parameter for the purpose of collision avoidance. Then, a new collision-avoidance condition is developed for the dynamically changing environment, which consists of a time criterion and a geometrical criterion, and it has explicit physical meanings in both the transformed space and the original working space. By imposing the avoidance condition, one can determine one (or a class of) collision-free path(s) in a closed form. Such a path meets all boundary conditions, is twice differentiable, and can be updated in real time once a change in the environment is detected. The solvability condition of the problem is explicitly found, and simulations show that the proposed method is effective.