A new navigation concept for mobile vehicles

A hierarchical navigation system which delivers paths with continuous curvature for rectangularly-modeled vehicles is proposed. After a brief overview of the transport system consisting of omni wheel drive carriers, and on-carrier and off-carrier sensor components, the navigation module of this system is described. The multilevel navigation is based on a new polygonal partitioning of the Cartesian free-space, which allows a fast local modification of the partitions if obstacles are added or deleted. An A*-algorithm whose weight function is automatically adjusted by information on lower system levels delivers a coarse route through the environment (driving channel). Subsequently, a sequence of straight lines is generated, which are oriented along the right border of this channel. On the next level of path planning, curves are fitted into the corners of the line segment sequences to generate paths with continuous curvature. The generated, right-oriented paths are collision-free for rectangular modeled vehicles