Autonomous Mobile Navigation With Selective Obstacle Avoidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing autonomous mobile apparatuses perform unnecessary avoidance actions when detecting obstacles, leading to delays in reaching the destination, as they navigate along an avoidance path regardless of whether the obstacle actually requires avoidance.
Innovation Solution
An autonomous mobile apparatus equipped with a sensor and circuitry that determines the presence of obstacles and obstacle-avoiding regions, changing its direction only when an obstacle is within a smaller change region, thereby reducing unnecessary avoidance actions by assessing the need for avoidance based on a smaller area within the search region.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the autonomous mobile apparatus performs avoidance action whenever an obstacle is detected in the search region, then the apparatus ensures safety by avoiding all detected obstacles, but the apparatus experiences unnecessary avoidance actions that delay arrival at the destination
Solution Approach 1:
The search region is divided into two distinct regions: a first region where obstacles are detected, and a second region (traveling direction change region) that is smaller and located within the first region. The apparatus only performs avoidance actions when obstacles are detected in the second region, not the entire first region. This segmentation allows the system to maintain safety by detecting all obstacles while reducing unnecessary avoidance actions by only responding to obstacles in the critical second region closer to the travel path.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the autonomous mobile apparatus searches for avoidance paths for all detected obstacles, then the apparatus comprehensively handles all potential hazards, but the apparatus undergoes unnecessary path deviations that reduce travel efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
Different regions within the search area are assigned different functional qualities. The first region serves as a detection zone where all obstacles are identified, while the second region (smaller and within the first region) serves as the critical action zone where avoidance actions are triggered. This local quality differentiation enables the apparatus to maintain comprehensive obstacle awareness while improving travel efficiency by only deviating from the path when obstacles are in the critical second region.
Data Source
AI summary
An autonomous mobile apparatus is provided that includes a traveling body, a sensor mounted to the traveling body, and circuitry. The circuitry is configured to: determine whether there is an obstacle in a search region, which extends in a direction of a route on which the traveling body travels, based on a detection result of the sensor; when the obstacle determination section determines that there is the obstacle in the search region, determine whether there is an obstacle avoiding region, in which the traveling body is able to avoid the obstacle, in horizontal directions that intersect a traveling direction; and when there is the obstacle in a traveling direction change region, which is located within the search region and smaller than the search region, change the traveling direction of the traveling body toward the obstacle avoiding region so that the traveling body performs an avoidance action.