If you've ever ordered a product from Amazon, chances are that a robot selected your purchase from a shelf, read the barcode, and delivered it to the counter for packaging. Hopefully, it didn't collide with a human worker on its journey and lose its way.
The odds of that happening have now shortened, with the University of South Australia researchers developing an algorithm to help robots avoid running into humans and other moving obstacles in their path.
UniSA mechatronics engineering lecturer Dr. Habib Habibullah and colleagues have built a computer model that ensures mobile robots can recognize and avoid unexpected obstacles, finding the quickest and safest path to their destination.
In a new paper published in the Journal of Field Robotics, Dr. Habibullah describes how his team combined the best elements of existing algorithms to achieve a collision-free TurtleBot able to adjust its speed and steering angles.
"There are two types of path planning strategies for mobile robots, depending on whether they are being used in fixed environments or where they are encountering moving obstacles, such as humans or machines," Dr. Habibullah says.
"The first is fairly easy to program but the second is more challenging."
There are several algorithms on the market trying to address the issue of robots colliding with moving objects, but none are foolproof.
Dr. Habibullah says their algorithm could be applied in many environments, including industrial warehouses where robots are commonly used, for robotic fruit picking, packing, and pelletizing, and also for restaurant robots that deliver food from the kitchen to the table.
