A Solution for Trajectory Planning and Control of Cooperative Steering Mobile Robot Based on Time Elastic Band

Abstract

To realise the autonomous navigation of cooperative steering mobile robots in unstructured scenarios and gain excellent motion stability and flexibility, this paper proposes a novel trajectory planning and control approach for online real-time trajectory planning and control of cooperative steering mobile robots. Based on the time elastic band, a continuous pose trajectory model with time information is established, and various constraints such as obstacle constraints and robot constraints are considered to realise an effective and safe real-time planning of motion trajectories. According to the variable information of the planned output function, a message conversion mechanism is established. The front and rear wheel cooperative steering control function is constructed for the message conversion of speed and steering angle, and the follow-up steering factor is set to adjust the steering angle range of the rear wheel following the front wheel to realise the real-time control of the robot. Experiments have verified the feasibility and superior kinematic characteristics of the approach. Results show that the proposed approach of trajectory planning and control for the cooperative steering mobile robots has higher operating efficiency and better safety than front wheel steering robots. An appropriate follow-up steering factor is selected to ensure the stability of the robot’s motion.