Motion control of an outdoor patrol robot using a single laser range finder

This paper reports the development of a mobile robot for patrol using a single laser range finder. A Laser range finder is useful for outdoor environment regardless of illumination change or various weather conditions. In this paper we combined the motion control of the mobile robot and the algorithm for detecting the outdoor environment. For obstacle avoidance, we adopted the Vector Field Histogram algorithm. A laser range finder is mounted on the mobile robot and looking down the road with a small tilt angle. We propose an algorithm for detecting the surface of the road. The outdoor patrol robot platform is equipped with a DGPS system, a gyro-compass sensor, and a laser range finder. The proposed obstacle avoidance and road detection algorithms were experimentally tested in success.