A safe and efficient LIDAR-based navigation system for 4WS4WD mobile manipulators in manufacturing plants

Abstract

Abstract The safe and efficient autonomous navigation of mobile manipulators is still challenging in harsh manufacturing environments with dynamic obstacles and narrow spaces. This paper addresses that challenge by proposing an industrial-grade LIDAR-based navigation system for four-wheel-steering and four-wheel-driving mobile manipulators and focuses on enhancing the system’s safety and efficiency in manufacturing plants. On one hand, using an efficient soft-evidence unscented distance filter, a robust localization method is presented to eliminate dynamic interference. The variation results of scan matching are ingeniously applied to formulate a practical localization-failure-detection strategy, therefore improving localization safety under confusing working conditions. On the other hand, an efficient path-graph-based trajectory-planning method is proposed, which can instantly generate a trajectory in a safe and effective search space. Considering the regional connectivity and movement characteristics of the 4WS4WD mobile manipulator, a novel path graph is designed to construct the search space. Even in a large-scale scenario, a robot can obtain the desired trajectory within 5 ms. Ultimately, some core modules, such as a safety module and a fault-tolerant control module are integrated to form a comprehensive navigation system. The simulated and real experimental results prove the excellent performance of our navigation system, which has been successfully applied in many real-world scenarios.