Fuzzy logic and behavior control strategy for autonomous mobile robot mapping

In support of research efforts to develop reactive mobile robots capable of autonomous navigation, we are concentrating on providing human reasoning capabilities as a resource for intelligence and integrating the world mapping and navigation tasks. The underlying philosophy is that an autonomous mobile robot should be able to make a map of its environment as it navigates through that environment. Fuzzy logic control and behavior-based navigation are proposed as means to implement this philosophy. Fuzzy logic provides the approximate reasoning necessary for handling the uncertainty inherent in mobile robot navigation. By decomposing the problem into simpler tasks we can develop mobile robots that exhibit a sufficient level of intelligence for performing navigation and mapping. In this paper, we discuss a strategy for incorporating fuzzy reasoning into the framework of reactive behavior control systems for autonomous mapping