Nearness diagram (ND) navigation: collision avoidance in troublesome scenarios

• Published in: IEEE transactions on robotics and automation Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 45 - 59
• Main Authors: Javier Minguez, Montano, L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.02.2004; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Associate members; Automation; Collision avoidance; Collision avoidance systems; Computer science; control theory; systems; Control theory. Systems; Design methodology; Diagrams; Exact sciences and technology; Mobile robots; Motion planning; Navigation; Neodymium; Robot sensing systems; Robotics; Robots; Strategic planning; Strategy; Vehicle dynamics; Vehicles; Script; Navigation; Clutter; Collision avoidance; Divide and conquer method; Robotics
• ISSN: 1042-296X; 2374-958X
• DOI: 10.1109/TRA.2003.820849

This paper addresses the reactive collision avoidance for vehicles that move in very dense, cluttered, and complex scenarios. First, we describe the design of a reactive navigation method that uses a "divide and conquer" strategy based on situations to simplify the difficulty of the navigation. Many techniques could be used to implement this design (since it is described at symbolic level), leading to new reactive methods that must be able to navigate in arduous environments (as the difficulty of the navigation is simplified). We also propose a geometry-based implementation of our design called the nearness diagram navigation. The advantage of this reactive method is to successfully move robots in troublesome scenarios, where other methods present a high degree of difficulty in navigating. We show experimental results on a real vehicle to validate this research, and a discussion about the advantages and limitations of this new approach.