Planning collision-free trajectories in time-varying environments: a two-level hierarchy

We propose a two-level hierarchy for planning collision-free trajectories in time varying environments. Global geometric algorithms for trajectory planning are used in conjunction with a local avoidance strategy. Simulations have been developed for a mobile robot in the plane among stationary and moving obstacles. Essentially, the robot has a global geometric planner that provides a coarse global trajectory (the path and velocity along it), which may be locally modified by the low-level local avoidance module if local sensors detect any obstacles in the vicinity of the robot. This hierarchy makes effective use of the complementary aspects of the global trajectory planning approaches and the local obstacle avoidance approaches.