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Quasi-Harmonic Function Approach to Human-Following Robots

In this thesis, an approach for robot motion control with collision avoidance and human-following is investigated. Using velocity potential fields approach in a modified, quasi-harmonic, solution, the navigation controller is developed. A quasi-harmonic function based controller uses harmonic solutions for collision avoidance and smoothly changes toward a non-harmonic solution which tends toward a zero velocity command only when approaching the goal. After the motion controller was created, human-following strategy was designed to let a non-holonomic robot have the ability to follow a human in an unknown environment with obstacles. The approach is based on velocity potential fields that permit to generate velocity vector commands that drive the robot at a safe distance with regard to the human while avoiding obstacles. The quasi-harmonic approach is investigated analytically using symbolic math solutions of MAPLETM as well as in simulations using MATLABTM. Motion simulations of both holonomic and non-holonomic robot motion illustrate how the proposed approach operates. Experiments are also made with LEGO MINDSTROMS NXT robot to test the algorithm in environment with simple and complex obstacles.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/31465
Date January 2014
CreatorsNie, Guangqi
ContributorsNecsulescu, Dan-Sorin
PublisherUniversité d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Source SetsUniversité d’Ottawa
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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