Curve-based Approach for Optimal Trajectory Planning with Optimal Energy Consumption: application to Wheeled Mobile Robots

Abstract

Wheeled transportation systems have been used since the dawn of civilization. The great amount of experience we have with wheeled transportation systems gives the Wheeled Mobile Robots (WMRs) an edge over other types of robots. This has allowed WMRs to be the prime candidates for many applications including, but not limited to, military and space applications. Sometimes these vehicles have to work in complex environments with complicated constraints to finish their assigned tasks. This paper presents a methodology to generate a smooth feasible trajectory for WMR using Pythagorean Hodograph (PH) curves. Generated trajectory not only avoids the static obstacles but also conforms to minimum energy consumption and travel time possible within the kinematic constraints of the WMR. Simulations are presented to check the performance of the proposed approach. The proposed method is experimentally validated using a WMR ‘Robotino’.