Vision-Based Trajectories Planning for Four Wheels Independently Steered Mobile Robots with Maximum Allowable Velocities

Abstract

In this paper, we extend our previous work to introduce a novel vision-based trajectories planning method for four-wheel-steered mobile robots. Relying only on the overhead camera and by utilizing artificial potential fields and visual servoing concepts, we simultaneously, generate the synchronized trajectories for all wheels in the world coordinates with sufficient number of trajectories midpoints. The synchronized trajectories are used to provide the robot’s kinematic variables and robot-instantaneous-center of rotation to reduce the complexity of the robot kinematic model. Therefore, we plan maximum allowable velocities for all wheels so that at least one of the actuators is always working at maximum velocity. Experiment results are presented to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method for four-wheel-steered mobile robot called iMoro.