Range histogram: an environment representation method for indoor navigation of mobile robots

The paper describes an environment representation applicable to in-door obstacle avoidance and in-door navigation of mobile robots. The method, namely range histogram, is based on previous work on VFH (Vector Field Histogram) and AKH (Active Kinematic Histogram) incorporating histogramic representation techniques to achieve low complexity in environment representation. Based on range histogram real-time obstacle avoidance algorithms are proposed that exploit the range histogram to perform in-door navigation. The method is applied on a test bed mobile robot.