MOBILE ROBOT DOCKING WITH OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE AND VISUAL SERVOING AVOIDANCE AND VISUAL SERVOING, 97-108.

In many scenarios, mobile robots are required to work in a condition that prohibits human intervention. This condition introduces a problem of onboard power availability which is limited by the storage space and battery technologies. As a result, autonomous docking for robot recharging is necessary to ensure a long operation time. Recent literature shows that obstacle avoidance and precise localization of charging stations for mobile robot docking both are quite challenging. In this paper, a two-step autonomous docking algorithm is proposed, including online path planning and vision-based motion control. A full-system model and the control law are derived along with simulations and experimental results to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.