An improved dynamic window approach algorithm for dynamic obstacle avoidance in mobile robot formation

Dynamic Window Approach (DWA) algorithm is a commonly used choice in dynamic obstacle avoidance. However, the traditional DWA algorithm evaluation function is poorly adapted to dynamic obstacle avoidance and has defects in efficiency and safety. In this paper, we consider the speed and heading of the mobile robot formation and the speed and heading of the obstacles and design the speed-varying obstacle avoidance and safety distance evaluation coefficients. The objective is to design an improved DWA algorithm to improve the obstacle avoidance ability of mobile robot formations when encountering dynamic obstacle interference. First, the obstacle environment in which the mobile robot formation is located is analyzed to determine the obstacles that threaten the formation and those that are not. Second, the obstacle velocity space is evaluated and analyzed using the velocity change evaluation coefficient so that the robot formation’s obstacle avoidance behavior after the combination of angular and linear travel velocities has high robustness in the face of dynamic obstacle interference. Finally, the evaluation coefficient of safe obstacle avoidance distance is designed to accurately judge the positional relationship between the robot formation and dynamic obstacles at the moment of obstacle avoidance, which maximizes the safety of the robot formation traveling. The experimental results show that the improved algorithm shortens the obstacle avoidance time by 37.3% and saves 16.8% of the distance traveled than the traditional algorithm. It also achieves good results in terms of robustness and safety. •Propose an improved dynamic window approach for obstacle avoidance in mobile robots.•Consider the speed and heading of robot formation and obstacles.•Design the evaluation coefficient of variable speed obstacle avoidance.•Design the evaluation coefficient of safe distance.•Improve the dynamic obstacle avoidance ability of mobile robot formation.