Reactive Sliding-Mode Algorithm for Collision Avoidance in Robotic Systems

This brief presents a reactive reference conditioning algorithm for robot collision avoidance based on geometric invariance and sliding-mode (SM) ideas. First, constraints are defined in terms of the measurements given by the robot´s sensors in order to guarantee that collisions will not occur. Then, a supervisory loop ensures the fulfillment of the constraints modifying the reference trajectory as much as necessary by means of a discontinuous control law. The proposed algorithm activates only when the constraints are about to be violated and, thus, in contrast to conventional SM approaches, there exists no reaching mode to the limit surface of the constraints (sliding surface). The validity and effectiveness of the proposed approach is substantiated by simulation and experimental results using a mobile robot equipped with infrared sensors.