Kinodynamic motion planning for mobile robots using splines

This paper presents an approach to time-optimal kinodynamic motion planning for a mobile robot. A global path planner is used to generate collision-free straight-line paths from the robot´s position to a given goal location. With waypoints of this path, an initial trajectory is generated which defines the planned position of the robot over time. A velocity profile is computed that accounts for constraints on the velocity and acceleration of the robot. The trajectory is refined to minimize the time needed for traversal by an any-time optimization algorithm. An error-feedback controller generates motor commands to execute the planned trajectory. Quintic Be¿zier splines are used to allow for curvature-continuous joins of trajectory segments, which enables the system to replan trajectories in order to react to unmapped obstacles. Experiments on real robots are presented that show our system´s capabilities of smooth, precise, and predictive motion.