Sensor-based fuzzy reactive navigation of a mobile robot through local target switching

Fuzzy reactive control, incorporating a local target switching scheme, is applied to the automatic navigation of an intelligent mobile robot in an unknown and changing environment. Sensed-ranging signals and relative target position signals are input to the fuzzy controller. The steering angle and the velocity change are inferred to drive the mobile robot. A reactive rule base governing the robot behavior is synthesized from the human heuristics with respect to various situations of environment. A local target switching scheme is proposed to serve as a front-end processor of the fuzzy active controller and to deal with the local trapping and wandering cycle problem in the navigation of a behavior based mobile robot. The algorithm is described, together with some particular considerations about implementation. Efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach are verified through simulation and experiments conducted on a Nomad 200 mobile robot.