A 24*7 patrolling mobile robot (part 1 - navigation)

Abstract

Navigation is one of the research topics that are greatly funded by both government and

private sector. A good example is the rising development of low-cost robotic space

exploration where the robot is tasked to navigate and collect data from any specific planet or

moon.

Navigation can be classified into Localization, Path Planning and Obstacle Avoidance.

Localization is the ability to locate the current position of the robot within a region. Path

planning is a searching algorithm using a static map to compute a path to reach the target goal

using the given current position while Obstacle Avoidance is the capability to re-plan the

given path by the Path Planning to prevent it from crashing into the obstacles.

In this Final Year Project, my task is to experiment with Dijkstra’s Algorithm for its reliability

in Path Planning and investigate which techniques, namely Trajectory Planner or Dynamics

Window Approach (DWA), is more suitable for Obstacle Avoidance.