Path planning of a mobile robot for avoiding moving obstacles with improved velocity control by using the hydrodynamic potential

This paper describes the theory and the simulation of an improved velocity potential approach for path planning by which a mobile robot avoids standing and/or moving obstacles by using the hydrodynamic potential. This potential function for path planning is feasible for guiding a mobile robot to avoid an arbitrarily moving obstacle and to reach the goal in real time without finding the local maximum or minimum points in all cases. In this theory, there are two problems. One is that a mobile robot accelerates rapidly when it avoids a moving obstacle. The other is that a mobile robot has a discontinuous velocity when it is passing a moving obstacle. An ellipse field, which is obtained by using the conformal transformation, and a correction function, which generates the continuous velocity field, are installed in the previous potential function to cope with the difficulty. As a result, a mobile robot can gradually avoid a moving obstacle from further away, and can be safely guided without rapid acceleration.