Reflexive sonar-based navigation of intelligent robot manipulators in dynamic environments using fuzzy control

This paper presents intelligent robot motion planning based on fuzzy rules for the idea of artificial potential fields using analytic harmonic functio ns. The purpose of the fuzzy controller is to generate commands for the ser vo-systems of the robot so it can autonomously find its way to its goal, wh ile reacting in real-time to unexpected events by using a specific active r ange finding device, i.e. an ultrasonic sensor. Sonar range data is used to build a description of the robot's surroundings. Range measurements are in tegrated using a robust method, which can cope with uncertainties and error s in the given data. The proposed approach is simple, computationally fast and applies to whole-arm collision avoidance for n d.o.f arm manipulators. The stability of the overall closed-loop system composed by the nonlinear r obot dynamics and the fuzzy controller is guaranteed by Lyapunov theory. Si mulation results are provided to validate the theoretical concepts and a co mparative analysis demonstrates the benefits of the proposed obstacle avoid ance algorithm.