Wheeled robot navigation and local-map building in unknown environments

This paper develops a approach of Navigation for a wheeled mobile robot (WMR) that can build local-map and achieve obstacle avoidance in an unknown environment. There is a Laser Range Finder (LRF) on the top of the WMR. The data of the LRF are used to build the local-map and uses the Vector Field Histograms (VFHs) methods to achieve obstacle avoidance in an environment. In order to build the local-map, the data of the LRF could be analyzed by three steps: region partitioning, line segment extracting and line segment fitting. Then the local-map information is supply to VFH to accomplish avoid obstacles. Finally, the simulations are given to verify to the feasibility and effectiveness of the present method.