Optimal Model of Obstacle Avoidance of Two-Wheeled Robots

Abstract

Obstacle Avoidance (OA) is a fundamental requirement for a mobile robot to prevent damaging itself. Also, Collision avoidance system is an important issue of the Self-driving car in the near future. Several robotic competitions in Taiwan challenge participants building and coding their mobile robots to avoid obstacles; and usually, the obstacles are plastic bottles. To do OA, be able to find the obstacle is the first requirement. At present, ranging sensors such as laser ranging, infrared ranging, ultrasonic sensors are commonly used to detect an obstacle. However, due to the transparency of plastic bottles, ultrasonic sensors is the only way to measure the distance of the plastic bottle. In this paper, an optimal OA method, shortest path without collision, is presented. Plenty experimental results show that the mathematical model presented in this paper is quite accurate and effective. Furthermore, the research results have been verified by participating in an international robotics competition, and finally winning the championship confirms the practical application value of this research.