Title

Kinematic Path-Planning for Formations of Mobile Robots with a Nonholonomic Constraint

Author Info

Timothy D. Barfoot, University of Toronto
Christopher M. Clark, Stanford UniversityFollow
Stephen M. Rock, Stanford University
Gabriele M.T. D'Eleuterio, University of Toronto

Recommended Citation

Published in Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October 1, 2002, pages 2819-2824.

NOTE: At the time of publication, the author Christopher Clark was not yet affiliated with Cal Poly.

The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1109/IRDS.2002.1041697.

Abstract

A method of planning paths for formations of mobile robots with nonholonomic constraints is presented. The kinematics equations presented in this paper allow a general geometrical formation of mobile robots to be maintained while the group as a whole travels an arbitrary path. It is possible to represent a formation of mobile robots by a single entity with the same type of nonholonomic constraint as the individual members. Thus, any path-planner or control method may be used with the formation as would be applied to an individual robot. Equations are developed for changing the geometrical formation and hardware results are presented from the Stanford MARS Testbed.

Disciplines

Computer Sciences

Copyright

2002 IEEE.

Publisher statement

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