Managing The Dynamics Of A Harmonic Potential Field-Guided Robot In A Cluttered Environment

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of harmonic potential fields (HPF) for planning and controlling robots with second order dynamics in cluttered environments, ensuring smooth, constrained paths.

Contribution

It introduces a method to develop HPF-based controllers for both holonomic and nonholonomic robots that suppress inertial effects while preserving kinematic planning features.

Findings

Effective path generation in cluttered environments

Suppression of inertial forces in robot trajectories

Successful simulation demonstrations

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the ability of the harmonic potential field, HPF, planning method to generate a well-behaved constrained path for a robot with second order dynamics in a cluttered environment. It is shown that HPF-based controllers may be developed for holonomic as well as nonholonomic robots to effectively suppress the effect of inertial forces on the robot trajectory while maintaining all the attractive features of a purely kinematic HPF planner. The capabilities of the suggested navigation controller are demonstrated using simulation results. Comparisons are also supplied with other approaches used for converting the guidance signal from a purely kinematic HPF planner into a navigation control signal.