Online Navigation Method for Mobile Robot Based on Thermal Compliance

The online navigation in unknown and dynamic environments is a crucial challenge for mobile robots. In this article, a novel online navigation method based on thermal compliance is proposed. The fundamental concept is that the optimal navigation path corresponds to the path with minimum thermal resistance during steady-state heat conduction. This objective can be achieved by continuously adding high thermal conductivity materials from the heat source to the heat sink. To determine the optimal laying direction of high thermal conductivity material, which also represents the optimal motion direction of mobile robot, dichotomy is employed. In order to generate feasible trajectories in real-time, the state space of mobile robot is discretized, and a set of motion primitives are generated by solving two-point boundary value optimal control problems. Simulations and experiments demonstrate that this proposed method exhibits robustness in terms of finding paths within unknown and dynamic environments without being trapped in local minima.