Reactive navigation in real environments using partial center of area method

Using inspiration from our perception on how humans select the path to walk in crowded areas, a new method for reactive autonomous robot navigation is proposed. The method uses only a part of the detected free space in front of the robot to compute a partial center of area. It can guide the robot safely for robust wandering while the center of area remains accessible. In some cases it is necessary to split and shrink the detected area used for navigation to overcome a transitional inaccessible center of area. The method was slightly modified so that the robot can reach a stimulus goal while avoiding obstacles. Method implementation and modifications are explained in detail. Some experiments were carried to test the method with a real robot in mid-complex environments. In previous works the method was extensively tested in simulations and the good results obtained there are confirmed by the real robot tests.