Prune-Able Fuzzy ART Neural Architecture for Robot Map Learning and Navigation in Dynamic Environments

Abstract Mobile robots must be able to build their own maps to navigate in unknown worlds. Expanding a previously proposed method based on the fuzzy ART neural architecture (FARTNA), this paper introduces a new on-line method for learning maps of unknown dynamic worlds. For this purpose the new Prune-Able Fuzzy ART neural architecture (PAFARTNA) is introduced. It extends the FARTNA self-organizing neural network with novel mechanisms that provide important dynamic adaptation capabilities. Relevant PAFARTNA properties are formulated and demonstrated. A method is proposed for the perception of object removals, and then integrated with PAFARTNA. The proposed methods are integrated into a navigation architecture. With the new navigation architecture the mobile robot is able to navigate in changing worlds, and a degree of optimality is maintained, associated to a shortest path planning approach implemented in real-time over the underlying global world model. Experimental results obtained with a Nomad 200 robot are presented demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methods. Index Terms Self-organizing maps learning. Neural architec-ture. Dynamic worlds. Mobile robot navigation