Mobile robot path planning using Voronoi diagram and fast marching

For navigation in complicated environments, a robot must reach a compromise between efficient trajectories and ability to react to unexpected environmental events. This paper presents a new sensorbased path planner, which gives a fast local or global motion plan capable to incorporate new obstacles data. Within the first step, the safest areas in the environment are extracted by means of a Voronoi Diagram. Within the second step, the fast marching method is applied to the Voronoi extracted areas so as to get the trail. This strategy combines map-based and sensor-based designing operations to supply a reliable motion plan, whereas it operates at the frequency of the sensor. The most interesting characteristics are high speed and reliability, as the map dimensions are reduced to a virtually one-dimensional map and this map represents the safest areas within the environment. Additionally, the Voronoi Diagram is calculated in open areas with all reasonably shaped obstacles. This fact permits to use the planned trajectory methodology in complex environments wherever different Voronoi-based strategies will not work.Publicad

Path Planning for Mobile Robot Navigation using Voronoi Diagram and Fast Marching

For navigation in complex environments, a robot need s to reach a compromise between the need for having efficient and optimized trajectories and t he need for reacting to unexpected events. This paper presents a new sensor-based Path Planner w hich results in a fast local or global motion planning able to incorporate the new obstacle information. In the first step the safest areas in the environment are extracted by means of a Vorono i Diagram. In the second step the Fast Marching Method is applied to the Voronoi extracted a reas in order to obtain the path. The method combines map-based and sensor-based planning o perations to provide a reliable motion plan, while it operates at the sensor frequency. The m ain characteristics are speed and reliability, since the map dimensions are reduced to an almost uni dimensional map and this map represents the safest areas in the environment for moving the robot. In addition, the Voronoi Diagram can be calculated in open areas, and with all kind of shaped obstacles, which allows to apply the proposed planning method in complex environments wher e other methods of planning based on Voronoi do not work.This work has been supported by the CAM Project S2009/DPI-1559/ROBOCITY2030 I

Towards Exact Localization without Explicit Localization with the Generalized Voronoi Graph

. Sensor based exploration is a task which enables a robot to explore and map an unknown environment, using sensor information. The map used in this paper is the generalized Voronoi graph (GVG). The robot explores an unknown environment using an already developed incremental construction procedure to generate the GVG using sensor information. This paper presents some initial results which uses the GVG for robot localization, while mitigating the need to update encoder values. Experimental results verify the described work. 1 Introduction Sensor based exploration enables a robot to explore an unknown environment, and using its sensor information, build a map of that environment. A critical component to this task is the robot's ability to ascertain its location in the partially explored map or to determine that it has entered new territory. Many conventional methods attempt to make this determination via a localization scheme which updates the (x; y) coordinates of the robot. Most robo..