Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance for Non-holonomic Mobile Robots with Differential Wheels

This paper presents an obstacle avoidance algorithm for a non-holonomic system consisting of a mobile robot with differential wheels. The strategy is presented and verified in simulation through two examples. The first test shows a mobile robot navigating a path where an obstacle is located, while in the second the mobile robot is fixed at a target position and an obstacle interferes. The motion planning is dynamic and the direction of the robot is changed only when the obstacle enters the zone of influence. The possibility of using a rectangular kinematic structure with a tip at the front of the robot is introduced. The rectangular structure allows to identify a contour on which to carry out distance analysis of the obstacle while the tip allows to avoid some stall situations that can occur during the robot’s movements and to simplify manoeuvres to avoid obstacles. In future work, these considerations will allow the extension to a mobile manipulator composed of a base with differential wheels and a 6 degrees of freedom arm.