Geometric path tracking and obstacle avoidance methods for an autonomous navigation of nonholonomic mobile robot

This paper presents a method that integrates the geometric path tracking and the obstacle avoidance for nonholonomic mobile robot. The mobile robot follows the path by moving through the turning radius given from the pure pursuit method which is the one of the geometric path tracking methods. And the obstacle generates the obstacle potential, from this potential, the virtual force is obtained. Therefore, the turning radius for avoiding the obstacle is calculated by proportional to the virtual force. By integrating the turning radius for avoiding the obstacle and the turning radius for following the path, the mobile robot follows the path and avoids the obstacle simultaneously. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through the real experiments for path tracking only, static obstacle avoidance, dynamic obstacle avoidance. © ICROS 2010.