Abstract—Making the robot move on its own gives extra challenges such as the robot’s ability to localize autonomously, generate a map of its environment and avoid the obstacles. This paper presents new methods to solve problems caused by the navigation of a self-directed Wheeled Mobile Robot (WMR) in unknown environments which may contain unknown-positions & dimensions regular rectangle static obstacles. This work has been implemented in several stages. Firstly, image processing which is developed in MATLAB in order to detect the obstacles edges and divide the environment into various spaces. Secondly, motion planning based on “Grid Method” in order to find all the possible paths and choose the best one. Thirdly, Chained Form Algorithm with Cosine Switch Control is used to steer 3-WMR from the start-point to the goal. The methods, which are developed in this work to come up with the free collision motion planning for wheeled robot, are completely innovative and unique. As well these methods are able to solve the problem of local minima. The new methods provide the set of conditions under which a motion planning based on the proposed solutions in this paper would bring advantages. 

Index Terms—obstacle detection, obstacle avoidance, collision-free motion planning of WMRs

Cite: Essa Alghannam, Lu Hong, Yang Zhen and Oula Esmail, "Design and Implementation of Novel Motion Planning for a WMR with the Presence of Obstacles," Journal of Automation and Control Engineering, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 31-39, June, 2018. doi: 10.18178/joace.6.1.31-39