A New Velocity Planning Method for Autonomous Robots with Varying Mass

Abstract

Mobile robots are designed to perform different tasks in many different fields such as production, fast delivery, defence industry and space exploration. Advances in mobile robots are crucial as they can perform tasks that are difficult, dangerous or inefficient for humans. In this context, we discuss the improvement of velocity planning in the rapidly evolving field of autonomous mobile robots. In this study, we focus on mobile robots with high variance in their weight. Mobile robots can transport loads or autonomous personal transportation vehicles such as wheelchairs, which can be given as an example of these types of systems. This study focuses specifically on linear velocity planning for providing the same performance for all payloads on the mobile robot considering comfort and safety. For this aim, we propose a new velocity planning method based on fuzzy logic which has several advantages over previous methods. The suggested algorithm is tested in simulations using certain performance measurement metrics. After the observation of successful results, real-world experimental tests are performed to prove the real-time applicability of the proposed approach.