Combining Probabilistic Velocity Obstacles and Occcupancy Grid for safe Navigation in dynamic environments

Abstract — The paper addresses the problem of a mobile robot navigating in a dynamic uncertain environment. The proposed method combines a dynamic occupancy grid with the Proba-bilistic Velocity Obstacle (PVO) framework. The velocity space is considered and, under the hypothesis of linear constant velocity of the obstacles, the probability of collision is estimated for each possible linear velocity of the robot. The limits of the perception system, such as sensor range and occlusions, and the uncertainties on position and velocity estimation, contribute directly to the computation of the probability of collision. A simple navigation algorithm has been developed to test the method and simulation results show that the robot is able to move safely among moving obstacles and to adapt its behaviour to different levels of knowledge. I