The Ariadne's Clew Algorithm

We present a new approach to path planning, called the "Ariadne's clew algorithm". It is designed to find paths in high-dimensional continuous spaces and applies to robots with many degrees of freedom in static, as well as dynamic environments - ones where obstacles may move. The Ariadne's clew algorithm comprises two sub-algorithms, called Search and Explore, applied in an interleaved manner. Explore builds a representation of the accessible space while Search looks for the target. Both are posed as optimization problems. We describe a real implementation of the algorithm to plan paths for a six degrees of freedom arm in a dynamic environment where another six degrees of freedom arm is used as a moving obstacle. Experimental results show that a path is found in about one second without any pre-processing

Hybrid approaches for mobile robot navigation

The work described in this thesis contributes to the efficient solution of mobile robot navigation problems. A series of new evolutionary approaches is presented. Two novel evolutionary planners have been developed that reduce the computational overhead in generating plans of mobile robot movements. In comparison with the best-performing evolutionary scheme reported in the literature, the first of the planners significantly reduces the plan calculation time in static environments. The second planner was able to generate avoidance strategies in response to unexpected events arising from the presence of moving obstacles. To overcome limitations in responsiveness and the unrealistic assumptions regarding a priori knowledge that are inherent in planner-based and a vigation systems, subsequent work concentrated on hybrid approaches. These included a reactive component to identify rapidly and autonomously environmental features that were represented by a small number of critical waypoints. Not only is memory usage dramatically reduced by such a simplified representation, but also the calculation time to determine new plans is significantly reduced. Further significant enhancements of this work were firstly, dynamic avoidance to limit the likelihood of potential collisions with moving obstacles and secondly, exploration to identify statistically the dynamic characteristics of the environment. Finally, by retaining more extensive environmental knowledge gained during previous navigation activities, the capability of the hybrid navigation system was enhanced to allow planning to be performed for any start point and goal point

Quantum Robot: Structure, Algorithms and Applications

A kind of brand-new robot, quantum robot, is proposed through fusing quantum theory with robot technology. Quantum robot is essentially a complex quantum system and it is generally composed of three fundamental parts: MQCU (multi quantum computing units), quantum controller/actuator, and information acquisition units. Corresponding to the system structure, several learning control algorithms including quantum searching algorithm and quantum reinforcement learning are presented for quantum robot. The theoretic results show that quantum robot can reduce the complexity of O(N^2) in traditional robot to O(N^(3/2)) using quantum searching algorithm, and the simulation results demonstrate that quantum robot is also superior to traditional robot in efficient learning by novel quantum reinforcement learning algorithm. Considering the advantages of quantum robot, its some potential important applications are also analyzed and prospected.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

A fuzzy controller with supervised learning assisted reinforcement learning algorithm for obstacle avoidance

Fuzzy logic system promises an efficient way for obstacle avoidance. However, it is difficult to maintain the correctness, consistency, and completeness of a fuzzy rule base constructed and tuned by a human expert. Reinforcement learning method is capable of learning the fuzzy rules automatically. However, it incurs heavy learning phase and may result in an insufficiently learned rule base due to the curse of dimensionality. In this paper, we propose a neural fuzzy system with mixed coarse learning and fine learning phases. In the first phase, supervised learning method is used to determine the membership functions for the input and output variables simultaneously. After sufficient training, fine learning is applied which employs reinforcement learning algorithm to fine-tune the membership functions for the output variables. For sufficient learning, a new learning method using modified Sutton and Barto's model is proposed to strengthen the exploration. Through this two-step tuning approach, the mobile robot is able to perform collision-free navigation. To deal with the difficulty in acquiring large amount of training data with high consistency for the supervised learning, we develop a virtual environment (VE) simulator, which is able to provide desktop virtual environment (DVE) and immersive virtual environment (IVE) visualization. Through operating a mobile robot in the virtual environment (DVE/IVE) by a skilled human operator, the training data are readily obtained and used to train the neural fuzzy system.published_or_final_versio

Automatic collision avoidance of ships

One of the key elements in automatic simulation of ship manoeuvring in confined waterways is route finding and collision avoidance. This paper presents a new practical method of automatic trajectory planning and collision avoidance based on an artificial potential field and speed vector. Collision prevention regulations and international navigational rules have been incorporated into the algorithm. The algorithm is fairly straightforward and simple to implement, but has been shown to be effective in finding safe paths for all ships concerned in complex situations. The method has been applied to some typical test cases and the results are very encouraging

Mobile robot controller using novel hybrid system

Hybrid neuro-fuzzy controller is one of the techniques that is used as a tool to control a mobile robot in unstructured environment. In this paper a novel neuro-fuzzy technique is proposed in order to tackle the problem of mobile robot autonomous navigation in unstructured environment. Obstacle avoidance is an important task in the field of robotics, since the goal of autonomous robot is to reach the destination without collision. The objective is to make the robot move along a collision free trajectory until it reaches its target. The proposed approach uses the artificial neural network instead of the fuzzified engine then the output from it is processed using adaptive inference engine and defuzzification engine. In this approach, the real processing time is reduce that is increase the mobile robot response. The proposed neuro-fuzzy controller is evaluated subjectively and objectively with other approaches and also the processing time is taken in consideration