From NLVO to NAO: Reactive Robot Navigation using Velocity and Acceleration Obstacles

TL;DR

This paper presents an advanced reactive navigation method for robots that incorporates acceleration constraints through novel obstacles, enabling safer and more efficient collision avoidance in dynamic environments.

Contribution

It extends the concept of Nonlinear Velocity Obstacles to include Acceleration Obstacles and Nonlinear Acceleration Obstacles, improving dynamic constraint handling in multi-robot navigation.

Findings

AO and NAO improve collision avoidance safety.

The method enables real-time navigation in complex environments.

Robots successfully navigate while respecting kinematic constraints.

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel approach for robot navigation in challenging dynamic environments. The proposed method builds upon the concept of Velocity Obstacles (VO) that was later extended to Nonlinear Velocity Obstacles (NLVO) to account for obstacles moving along nonlinear trajectories. The NLVO is extended in this paper to Acceleration Obstacles (AO) and Nonlinear Acceleration Obstacles (NAO) that account for velocity and acceleration constraints. Multi-robot navigation is achieved by using the same avoidance algorithm by all robots. At each time step, the trajectories of all robots are predicted based on their current velocity and acceleration to allow the computation of their respective NLVO, AO and NAO. The introduction of AO and NAO allows the generation of safe avoidance maneuvers that account for the robot dynamic constraints better than could be done with the NLVO alone. This paper demonstrates the use of AO and NAO for robot navigation in challenging environments. It is shown that using AO and NAO enables simultaneous real-time collision avoidance while accounting for robot kinematics and a direct consideration of its dynamic constraints. The presented approach enables reactive and efficient navigation, with potential application for autonomous vehicles operating in complex dynamic environments.