Minimum-Energy Motion Planning for Differential-Driven Wheeled Mobile Robots

Abstract

With the remarkable progresses in robotics, mobile robots can be used in many applications including exploration in unknown areas, search and rescue, reconnaissance, security, military, rehabilitation, cleaning, and personal service. Mobile robots should carry their own energy source such as batteries which have limited energy capacity. Hence their applications are limited by the finite amount of energy in the batteries they carry, since a new supply of energy while working is impossible, or at least too expensive to be realistic. ASIMO, Honda's humanoid robot, can walk for only approximately 30 min with its rechargeable battery backpack, which requires four hours to recharge The BEAR robot, designed to find, pick up, and rescue people in harm's way, can operate for approximately 30 min However, its operation time is insufficient for complicated missions requiring longer operation time. Since operation times of mobile robots are mainly restricted by the limited energy capacity of the batteries, energy conservation has been a very important concern for mobile robots (Makimoto & Sakai, 2003;