Sensor based navigation for car-like mobile robots using Generalized Voronoi Graph

Our research objective is to realize sensor based navigation by car-like mobile robots. Generalized Voronoi Graph (GVG) [1] has an advantage to describe mobile robot's path for sensor based navigation from the point of view of completeness and safety. However, it is impossible to apply the path to car-like mobile robot directly, because limitation of minimum turning radius prevents following non-smooth GVG. To solve the problem, we propose local smooth path planning algorithm for car-like mobile robots. Basically, an initial path is generated by conventional path planning algorithm using GVG theory, and it is deformed smoothly to enable car-like robots' following by maximizing an evaluation function proposed in this paper. The key topics are (A) definition of our evaluation function and (B) how to modify the G VG. In this paper, we introduce a local smooth path planning algorithm based on GVG, and explain a detail of the evaluation function. Simulation results support validity of the algorithm.