Implementation of algorithms for navigation of an autonomous mobile robot by using software component based frameworks

Abstract

This project is divided into five main goals/objectives:  Definition of a classification method for the various robotic subsystems used for navigation of an autonomous mobile robot. Together with this goal, it comes the analysis of the state of the art in terms of algorithms for local and global navigation of an autonomous mobile robot.  Implementation on C++ of the algorithms A* and Vector Field Histogram, for global and local navigation, respectively.  Design of an application that performs an hybrid behaviour in terms of navigation of an autonomous mobile robot. As main feature of this application, there is a decision-making component that makes the robot able to choose between both algorithms depending on environment around it. If the environment is not known, this component must request the local navigation algorithm to guide the robot since on this situation, the main goal is to avoid the unknown obstacles on the environment, and if the environment is known, this component must request the global navigation algorithm to guide the robot since on this case, the main goal is to go through the shortest path.  Analysis of the state of the art in terms of software engineering for robotics.  Implementation of the designed hybrid application and respective components on two different robotic frameworks, MinFr and Smartsoft.