Cooperative Collision Avoidance in Mobile Robots using Dynamic Vortex Potential Fields

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel collision avoidance method for mobile robots using dynamic vortex potential fields, enabling cooperative and non-cooperative robots to avoid collisions effectively in 2D environments.

Contribution

It proposes a new vortex potential field approach that guarantees collision avoidance and cooperation among robots, including stationary and actively colliding robots.

Findings

The method guarantees collision avoidance under specific parameter conditions.

Experimental results validate the theoretical collision avoidance capabilities.

The approach effectively handles both cooperative and non-cooperative robots.

Abstract

In this paper, the collision avoidance problem for non-holonomic robots moving at constant linear speeds in the 2-D plane is considered. The maneuvers to avoid collisions are designed using dynamic vortex potential fields (PFs) and their negative gradients; this formulation leads to a reciprocal behaviour between the robots, denoted as being cooperative. The repulsive field is selected as a function of the velocity and position of a robot relative to another and introducing vorticity in its definition guarantees the absence of local minima. Such a repulsive field is activated by a robot only when it is on a collision path with other mobile robots or stationary obstacles. By analysing the kinematics-based engagement dynamics in polar coordinates, it is shown that a cooperative robot is able to avoid collisions with non-cooperating robots, such as stationary and constant velocity robots, as well as those actively seeking to collide with it. Conditions on the PF parameters are identified that ensure collision avoidance for all cases. Experimental results acquired using a mobile robot platform support the theoretical contributions.