Heuristics and experiences with constraint based on-line collision avoidance for wheeled mobile robots

This paper proposes an extension of collision avoidance technique, derived from constraint based local navigation. The principle of the collision avoidance algorithm which constitutes an on-line version of the constraint based local navigation has been formerly exposed in Meizel and Ouldamar (1993). The present work adds a detailed study of heuristics used in combination with the basic method to prevent as many as possible deadlocks in the task of tracking a desired path while avoiding unpredicted obstacles. In addition, it is shown how to take into account acceleration constraints and curvature constraints when dealing with car like autonomous vehicles