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Seamless autonomous navigation based on the motion constraint of the mobile robot

Weina Chen (Navigation Research Center, College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China)
Qinghua Zeng (Navigation Research Center, College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China)
Jianye Liu (Navigation Research Center, College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China)
Huizhe Wang (Navigation Research Center, College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China)

Industrial Robot

ISSN: 0143-991x

Article publication date: 20 March 2017

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a seamless autonomous navigation method based on the motion constraint of the mobile robot, which is able to meet the practical need of maintaining the navigation accuracy during global positioning system (GPS) outages.

Design/methodology/approach

The seamless method uses the motion constraint of the mobile robot to establish the filter model of the system, in which the virtual observation about the speed is used to overcome the shortage of the navigation accuracy during GPS outages. The corresponding motion constraint model of the mobile robot is established. The proposed seamless navigation scheme includes two parts: the micro inertial navigation system (MINS)/GPS-integrated filter model and the motion constraint filter model. When the satellite signals are good, the system works on the MINS/GPS-integrated mode. If some obstacles block the GPS signals, the motion constraint measurement equation will be effective so as to improve the navigation accuracy of the mobile robot.

Findings

Three different vehicle tests of the mobile robot show that the seamless navigation method can overcome the shortage of the navigation accuracy during GPS outages, so as to improve the navigation performance in practical applications.

Originality/value

A seamless navigation system based on the motion constraint of the mobile robot is proposed to overcome the shortage of the navigation accuracy during GPS outages, thus improving the adaptability of the robot navigation.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61374115, 61104188, 61533008), the Funding for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in NUAA (Grant No. BCXJ13-05), the Funding of Jiangsu Innovation Program for Graduate Education (Grant No. CXZZ13_0156) and also partially supported by the fundamental research funds for the central universities (Grant No. NS2015037). The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and valuable remarks.

Citation

Chen, W., Zeng, Q., Liu, J. and Wang, H. (2017), "Seamless autonomous navigation based on the motion constraint of the mobile robot", Industrial Robot, Vol. 44 No. 2, pp. 178-188. https://doi.org/10.1108/IR-06-2016-0171

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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