Efficient path planning for mobile robots with adjustable wheel positions

摘要

Efficient navigation planning for mobile robots in complex environments is a challenging problem. In this paper we consider the path planning problem for mobile robots with adjustable relative wheel positions, which further increase the navigation capabilities. In particular we account for changes of these relative wheel positions during planning time, thus fully leveraging the capabilities of the robot. Whereas these additional degrees of freedom increase flexibility, they introduce a more challenging planning problem. The approach proposed in this paper is built upon a search-based planner. We describe how to flexibly integrate joint angle changes in the path planning process and furthermore propose a representation of the robot configuration that substantially reduces the computational burden. In addition, we introduce search guidance heuristics that are particularly useful in environments in which a robot is required to pass over obstacles, such as on agricultural fields. An extensive evaluation on simulated and real-world data with our BoniRob agricultural robot demonstrates the efficiency of our approach.