A decentralized collision avoidance algorithm of two mobile robots using potential fields

A new collision avoidance algorithm is presented for two mobile robots in narrow corridor environments. When two robots meet each other in a narrow corridor, one should yield the way to the other robot. To solve the problem arising in this situation, they exchange their path to get information about crossing-points to check avoidance conditions, which are necessary for choosing the robot to yield. The conditions are summarized as follows. 1) If one robot blocks the path to the closest crossing-point in front of the other robot. 2) If the closest crossing-point of each robot is the same point. 3) Which robot is closer to the closest crossing-point. In this paper, we propose a path planning algorithm for the robot which yield the way. Simulation results are presented to verify the feasibility of the proposed collision avoidance algorithm.