Smooth Nearness-Diagram Navigation

This paper presents a new method for reactive collision avoidance for mobile robots in complex and cluttered environments. Our technique is to adapt the ldquodivide and conquerrdquo approach of the nearness-diagram+ navigation (ND+) method to generate a single motion law which applies for all navigational situations. The resulting local path planner considers all the visible obstacles surrounding the robot, not just the closest two. With these changes our new navigation method generates smoother motion while avoiding obstacles. Results from comparisons with ND+ are presented as are experiments using Erratic mobile robots.