A unified homing and obstacle avoiding algorithm for autonomous mobile robots

A homing and obstacle avoiding algorithm is described. It takes as its input the current position and heading of a robot-vehicle relative to a desired position and heading and then `maps´ the `difference´ between them directly into actions for the controllers of motion and heading to act on. It includes explicitly, and in a separate phase of the overall computation the kinematic and dynamic constraints of a non-holonomic vehicle. The algorithm has been designed to allow range and bearing information about unmapped obstacles to modify the actions of a robot-vehicle. The authors show some of the obstacle avoiding behaviour. Since the objects are unmapped they could be other moving vehicles. To overcome uncertainty in the actual movement the algorithm continually recomputes the control actions needed to achieve the goal. Thus the algorithm has the potential to be extended to situations where the goal location is changing