Development of a Robust Path-Planning Algorithm Using Virtual Obstacles for an Autonomous Mobile Robot

In this paper, we describe the development of a robust path planning algorithm for an autonomous mobile robot. In order to achieve safe navigation in areas with moving obstacles, the mobile robot has to be controlled by a dynamic path-planning algorithm to avoid collisions. However, depending on changes in obstacle positions, the dynamic path planning algorithm frequently faces path-switching problems. In order to avoid the path-switching problems in the dynamic path planning algorithm, we introduce a virtual obstacle assignment method to suppress events caused by the path-switching problems. The effectiveness of proposed method is proved by an actual mobile robot. The validity of proposed method is confirmed by both simulations and actual outdoor experiments.