Optimal Circumnavigation of Unpredictably Moving Formations of Targets by a Nonholonomic Underactuated Mobile Robot
Valerii Chernov, Alexey S. Matveev · 2024
A nonholonomic underactuated mobile robot of the Dubins car type travels in a plane.There is an unpredictably moving rigid formation composed of an unknown number of point-wise objects; its geometric layout and parameters are also unknown.In its local frame, the robot has access to the relative coordinates of the objects within a given sensing range but does not measure their kinematic parameters.It is required to approach the objects and then to escort them so that they are enclosed inside the robot's path and a pre-specified distance to the currently nearest target is constantly maintained.Since the last objective cannot be attained literally, particularly due to the lower limited turning radius of the robot, a somewhat optimal approximation of the targeted path around the objects is elaborated.A computationally inexpensive control law is offered that solves the respectively corrected mission.Applicability and performance of the proposed circumnavigation approach is demonstrated via rigorous proofs of global convergence and intensive computer simulations.