A gross sensor-based navigation algorithm for a mobile robot with self-Positioning, sensing, control errors

In the sensor-based navigation, a mobile robot arrives at its goal surely if and only if it never joins any deadlock, i.e., any periodic cycle, otherwise, the robot recognizes no deadlock-free path in an uncertain world. We call a set of the alternative terminations as the deadlock-free characteristic. In every previous sensor-based navigation keep the deadlock-free characteristic under the following assumptions: (1) a mobile robot traces an uncertain obstacle faithfully; and (2) a mobile robot identifies its position and orientation exactly. However, a mobile robot cannot maintain these assumptions unfortunately because of three kinds of errors, i.e., self-positioning, sensing, and control errors. Therefore in this article, after eliminating these two assumptions, we design a new sensor-based navigation algorithm NC-Robust* in order for a mobile robot with these errors not to join any deadlock in an uncertain world. Then we give a proof of the deadlock-free characteristic and ascertain some feasibility of the algorithm NC-Robust* by a real mobile robot Nomad running in a practical world.