Real-time navigation of mecanum wheel-based mobile robot in a dynamic environment

Path planning and control of a mobile robot, in a dynamic environment, has been an important research topic for many years. In this paper an algorithm for autonomous motion of a mobile robot is proposed, with mecanum wheels, to reach a goal while avoiding obstacles through the shortest path in a dynamic environment. The proposed method uses a hybrid A* and a velocity obstacle algorithms for path planning and obstacle avoidance. The A* algorithm is implemented to explore the shortest path from starting position to the goal while avoiding all the static obstacles. However, in real time applications the dynamic obstacles need to be avoided, therefore, for such a case velocity obstacle algorithm is unified with the A* algorithm. Initially, the proposed algorithm is verified through simulations. Then it is implemented using experimental setup in real time environment using single and multiple static obstacles as well as on a dynamic obstacle. It can be observed that the robot reaches the goal, effectively by avoiding static and dynamic obstacles. Moreover, the performance of the proposed work is evaluated through qualitative comparison between proposed method and recently published work, showing that the proposed algorithm is gives better features than existing work. In the end, the possible application of mobile robot having mecanum wheels with proposed path planning method is also given in the paper.