Curvature based velocity control system for mobile robot

One serious problem in autonomous mobile robot is the accurate and effective following of an unknown path traced in the environment in compliance with the kinematic limits of the vehicle, i.e., bounded linear and angular velocities and accelerations. In this case, the motion planning must be implemented in realtime and must be robust with respect to the geometric characteristics of the unknown path such as curvature. To achieve good tracking capability, this paper proposes a path tracing system (PTS) with velocity control system, which is based on the curvature of the trajectory ahead of the vehicle to improve the image processing performance and tracking precision. A feedback system is also presented to guarantee the precision of the velocity control system and tracking system. To validate this curvature based velocity control system, a comparative experiment between PTS with speed control module and PTS without speed control module, has been operated. A simulation has also been carried out for confirming the optimum cornering speed corresponding to curvature value.