Robotics and

Autonomous
Systems
ELSEVIER Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153

Fuzzy logic techniques for mobile robot obstacle avoidance

Patrick Reignier *
LIFIA, IMAG, 46, Av. FElix Viallet, 38031 Grenoble, France

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the problem of reactive navigation for a mobile robot in an unknown clustered
environment. We will define reactive navigation as a mapping between sensory data and commands. Building a
reactive navigation system means providing such a mapping. It can come from a family of predefined functions (like
potential fields methods) or it can be built using 'universal' approximators (like neural networks). In this paper, we
will consider another 'universal' approximator: fuzzy logic. We will explain how to choose the rules using a behaviour
decomposition approach. It is possible to build a controller working quite well but the classical problems are still
there: oscillations and local minima. Finally, we will conclude that learning is necessary for a robust navigation
system and fuzzy logic is an easy way to put some initial knowledge in the system to avoid learning from zero.

Key words: Mobile robot; Reactive navigation; Fuzzy logic

1. Introduction fine the perceptual space as the space where each

This p a p e r is concerned with the problem of
reactive navigation for a mobile robot in an un-
known clustered environment. The navigation task
we will consider is reaching an absolute point
(x, y). This point can be provided by a h u m a n
operator or by a path planner for instance. This
navigation is reactive because there is no plan-
ning stage. The system uses only its estimated
position, the goal position and the depth mea-
sures coming from the sensors (like ultrasonic
sensors) to provide a c o m m a n d at each cycle
time. We will not consider that the robot can
memorise any of these values to use t h e m later.
Each c o m m a n d generation is done using only
input values available at this moment. If we de-
* E-mail: Patrick.Reignier@imag.fr, Fax: + 33 76 57 4602.
axis represents a sensor value (input) and the
c o m m a n d space as the space where each axis
represents a c o m m a n d variable (output), a reac-
tive navigation system is a mapping between these
two spaces. Let us call M one of the mappings
able to guide the robot to its goal (there is not
only one possible reaction in front of an obstacle).
T h e r e are two major problems:
• first, the mapping proposed by a navigation
system must be locally a good approximation of
M. Local means valid in a region of the percep-
tual space. For instance, the robot must turn
away in front of a wall;
• it must approximate M over the whole percep-
tual space (it must provide a good reaction for
each sensory data, for each perceptual situa-
tion).
The second problem is difficult because a robot
while moving has to face a wide variety of situa-
tions associated with a wide variety of different

0921-8890/94/$07.00 © 1994 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

SSDI 0 9 2 1 - 8 8 9 0 ( 9 3 ) E 0 0 3 9 - P
144 P. Reignier / Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153
reactions. As it is difficult to imagine the real
situation corresponding to any region of the per-
ceptual space, it is hard to provide the reaction
attached to every point in this region. Most of the
navigation systems are built using the opposite
approach: classical real situations are considered
(like following a wall, going through a door, navi-
gating in a corridor, etc). But there is no guaran-
tee that the regions corresponding to these situa-
tions will cover the whole perceptual space and
will not overlap. Overlapping implies commands
fusion or arbitration for instance.
A particular reaction is associated to a particu-
lar situation. To solve the first problem (local
approximation of M), we must provide the com-
mands that will generate the reaction. In most
cases, it is very difficult and almost impossible to
build a precise model of the vehicle and the
sensors (for the vehicle, non-linear differential
equations or different floor surfaces producing
different wheels sliding, and for ultrasonic sen-
sors for instance, shape and composition of the
obstacles, air temperature, etc.). It is not possible
to extract the mapping function using an exact
approach based on a mathematical description of
the situation. Approximations must be used. In
this paper, we will first consider some previous
reactive navigation methods, proposing a family
of mappings and then extracting one (potential
fields approaches), or trying to build the mapping
from zero using 'universal approximators' (as
neural networks). We will then present the navi-
gation reactive controller build in LIFIA, using
another 'universal approximator': a fuzzy logic
controller.
2. Classical mapping generation methods for nav-
igation
Classical reactive navigation methods can be
split into two categories:
• The mapping is selected among a family of
possible mappings (potential fields methods).
• The mapping is built using a 'universal function
approximator' (neural networks methods).
I am going now to give brief examples of both
approaches.
2.1. Potential fields methods
The common characteristic of all the methods
described in this section is that they all propose a
family of functions for the mapping. They all
suppose that inside this family, there is at least
one mapping close to M selected with coeffi-
cients tuning. This selection can be done manu-
ally (with no on-line changing) or automatically
(with machine learning type algorithms). The po-
tential field approach has been first proposed by
Khatib [8]) as an on-line collision avoidance
method. The robot is moving in a field of forces
derived from a potential function. It is attracted
by the goal (with a potential function propor-
tional to the goal distance) and repulsed by obsta-
cles (with a potential function inversely propor-
tional to the square distance of the obstacles).
The gains associated to those functions can be
tuned to select one. Another example can be
found in [12]. The robot is controlled with its
acceleration. The goal potential is proportional to
the time necessary to reach it. The obstacles
potential is the inverse of the 'reverse avoiding
time', that is the time the robot still has to
decelerate before a collision.
Wallner proposed a default mapping for the
whole perceptual space. When a problem is de-
tected (the default mapping is not 'capable'
enough to command the robot in a particular
situation), the mapping is adapted on-line [17].
For instance, if the robot detects it is trapped
into a local minima (the goal is behind a wall or it
wants to enter a narrow corridor), it can generate
a random movement to escape or adjust the po-
tential function weights. But the problem is not
solved. The singular point is only moved away
from the robot position. The local minima still
exist but in another place. Arkin proposed spe-
cialized mappings valid for particular perceptual
situations [1]. These mappings are called scheme.
The results coming from each active scheme are
combined to provide the final commands.
Koren has shown in [9] that problems like
oscillations or local minima are inherent in the
potential functions commonly used. They are not
adapted to approximate M.
Instead of trying to extract a function from a
 P. Reignier/ Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153
family, and doing so presupposing that M has a
particular form, another approach consists of
building this mapping using a 'universal approxi-
mator' like neural networks.
2.2. Neural networks methods
Neural networks estimate sampled functions.
The difference with traditional statistical-estima-
tion and adaptative-control approaches is that
they are model-free estimators. You do not need
a mathematical description of how the output
functionally depends on the input. And this is a
very important characteristic for the problem we
want to solve. There are three categories of learn-
ing processes: unsupervised, reinforced, and su-
pervised.
Unsupervised means that you only give the
input as samples to your system and you let it
cluster them. It is used for data preprocessing but
not for command generation ([10,3]).
On the opposite, a supervised system learns a
mapping from (input, output) samples. It learns
these points, and it must be able to give an
answer for points outside the learning set. The
samples must be representative of the structure
of the function they represent (more samples if
the function has a complex shape) and should be
equally spread over the input space. Selecting
them is a difficult task. They must contain the
answer to the question 'how to do it?'. Such an
approach has been successfully applied when
driving a car [15]. Watching a hiaman driver, the
network is learning a mapping between camera
images and commands.
Negative Zero Positive
-2 -1 0 I
Fig. 1. T h e left figure is an example of a membership function. T h e right figure is a fuzzy controller as patches for approximating a
function.
145
Instead of telling the robot how to do it, an-
other learning approach consists of letting it try
and telling it when it is right or wrong. You tell
the robot what to do but you let if find out how to
do it. This is a half way solution between unsu-
pervised and supervised learning. These tech-
niques are called reinforcement learning. It has
been successfully applied to solve robotic control
problems [3,16]. But such systems start to learn
from zero and it is very important and very diffi-
cult to select a good criticism function (judging
what the robot is doing) and to tune the different
gains. The quality of the learnt mapping relies on
that.
Neural networks, as 'universal' function esti-
mators, must be able to solve the reactive naviga-
tion problem. Their major drawback is that they
start learning with no initial knowledge, and to
have a good learning result (a good mapping),
samples must be very significant.
3. Fuzzy control for navigation
Neural networks are used to try to approxi-
mate an unknown function through some known
points. Fuzzy logic tries to achieve the same goal
but with a different approach. In particular, it
does not have the main Neural Network disad-
vantage which is the black box aspect and it has
the same advantage which is interpolation. In the
neural network approach, the user gives some
particular points and the system will learn the
function which is behind. In the fuzzy logic ap-
proach, the user gives the points and the knowl-
y
2~
2 a x
146 P. Reignier / Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153

edge he has of the process to sculpt the shape of A I B b

j -
Coder ~
~ K n o w l-e-d- g e base ~ Decoder
the curve which will approximate the function. " ] (fuzzifier)
l _ ' ....... ! (Ai,_Bi) / ~1 (defuzzifler) I
This part is done in a static way. It is then
possible to do some learning to try to improve the
a
controller but we will not consider that in this
paper. I am now going to present briefly fuzzy set L J

theory [18] and its application to control prob- Fig. 2. General architecture of a fuzzy controller.
lems [11].

3.1. Fuzzy logic value comes from a sensor, then the measure
noise must be added. The classical membership
The purpose of fuzzy sets is to extend the functions used are the triangular, trapezoidal and
definition of the classical membership function to bell-shaped (see Fig. 3). The input fuzzy set A is
a continuous function: then presented to the knowledge base (the sec-
ond box) which is a set of relations (Ai, Bi). A i
m : X ~ [0,1]
and B i are called linguistic terms. This simple
VxEX, mA(X ) =O=x~A scheme can be complicated using fuzzy logic con-
VX E X , mA(X ) = 1.0 ~X cA
nectives like and, or, not, introduced by Zadeh:

V x , 0 < x < 1, m A( X ) = degree x belongs to A . m A ^ B ( x ) = min(rnA(x), m B ( x ) ) V x ~ X

Fig. 1 represents three membership functions mAv B(x) = max(mA( x), mB( x) )Vx ~ X
associated respectively to the three sets Negative, m ~ A ( X ) = 1 --mA(X)Vx ~ X .
Zero and Positive. For the Zero set, the member-
For instance: if X is A i and Y is B i then Z is Bi.
ship value is 1 if x = 0 and 0 if x < - 1 or x > 1,
Giving the input A, the output B i is computed
which means that every value outside the [ - 1, 1]
with an inference process. The two mainly used
interval is definitively not 0 and every value inside
are explained in Fig. 4. Some theoretical justifica-
[ - 1, 1] is almost zero with a certain degree given
tions (using neural network results) can be found
by the membership function.
in [11]. There is an important point to notice. An
A Fuzzy logic controller (or Fuzzy associative
input vector A will activate all the rules (Ai, B i)
memory) is a mapping between input variables
but with different degrees. If A only partially
and output variables (those variables are of course
'satisfies' A i, the consequent Bi will be only
fuzzy sets and not numerical values as with a
partially activated. If A does not satisfy A~ at all,
classical transfer function). In a very simple way,
B i does not activate at all (the fuzzy set result of
we can say that we know a couple of points
the rule is empty, which means that its member-
(input, output) belonging to the function we want
ship function is the null function). A Neural
to model. We are supposing here that this func-
Network behaves differently. With an input A, it
tion is continuous, which means that if we know
one point (input, output), we can say: 'around
input the function value is close to output'. The
function is modeled with a collection of fuzzy sets // j , A
relations (Fig. 1). All fuzzy controllers have a /l\~ / i Ii
general architecture which can be described in L ~i\ / l
' ~ J //
terms of three boxes: codification, knowledge
base, decodification (Fig. 2). The first box is the
0 / I "
a 0 a
0+:i a
codification part. If the numerical input value a is Triangular Trapezoidal Bell-shape
noiseless, it can be avoided. You will consider in Fig. 3. Fuzzyfication process. The measure noise is added
fact that the a value is a conventional set A with using for instance a triangular, a trapezoidal or a bell shape
just one number inside a. If the numerical input m e m b e r s h i p function.
 P. Reignier / Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153 147

Ai ~ Bi /~ A Ai ~ Bi
/~ activatlonstren~hI / ~
/_ __~__~- t _~// B'i
.,,

a Min inferencewith crisp input Min inferencewith fuzzy input

l Ai ~ Bi A Ai '~ Bi
ivation strength [
s] / _ . _ ~ _>~ ~/B'i=s. Bi

a Product inferencewith crisp input Product inferencewith fuzzy input

Fig. 4. Inference processes. Note: the product inference keeps the membership function shape.

will try to reconstruct a full B i even if A and A i Once all the rules have been applied and com-
mismatch severely. That means that the fuzzy bined, the final result (if it is a set) must be
expert is more prudent than the Neural Network translated into a number to be sent to the plant
one. It will admit in certain situations that it does (the third box in Fig. 2). This is the decodification
not know the answer (an empty fuzzy set) instead (or defuzzyfication) phase. There are a lot of
of trying to guess it, which is a secure behavior techniques. One of the solutions called mean of
for a control process. maximum, computes the mean of all the points
Instead of having a constant fuzzy set on the which will maximize the membership function.
right side of the rule (Bi), it is possible to have a One of the drawbacks is that it does not take
combination of the input variables (which must much into account the shape of the curve. An-
then be numerical values and not fuzzy sets), for other frequently used solution is the Center of
instance: if x I is A'I and x 2 is A~ . . . t h e n y =p~
+ p~x 1 + pi~x 2 + ... +pi x,. In this case, the rule
answer is a number and not a fuzzy set.
Several rules will give a result for a particular
mlel role2
output variable. Those intermediate results must
be combined to give the final result. If the rule
answers are fuzzy sets, they can be combined
using a max operator on the membership func-
tion, or using a normalized sum operator (see Fig. Max combining
5 for details). If the rule answer is a number (a
function of the input variable), then the final
result is a weighted sum of the intermediate rulel rule2
results:

~-~WiX i
Z~---i=l~ ,
l
Sum combining
wi
i=1 Fig. 5. Two combining rule techniques. If several rules give
the same result, it will appear in the final result in case of a
where wi is the activation strength of the rule i. Sum combination but not with a Max combination.
148 P. Reignier / Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153
to have something more precise like [very slow,
slow, normal, fast, very fast}. In general, it is
vL +z
Mean of Maximum Center of Area
Fig. 6. Defuzzyfication techniques. The mean of maximum
techniques does not take the shape of the curve much into
account.
Area Method. The result is given by the formula:
q tion, we are going now to explain the navigation
E zjm(Zj)
j=l
Z = q
E m(zj)
j=l
(see Fig. 6).
A fuzzy controller is a universal continuous
function estimator. If the transfer function is
known, it is easy to find the rules that will fit the
approximation accuracy degree that is necessary
to have. If the transfer function is unknown,
which it is in our case, it can be built in a very
simple way by putting into the system the knowl-
edge (rules) we have, not of the plant itself, but
of the way we are controlling it ourselves. That is
an important difference with neural networks
techniques. Another great advantage of fuzzy
controller is its robustness. For instance, let us
consider the inverted pendulum. The controller
developed for a certain stick length will still work
fairly well with a shorter or a longer one. If we
add a platform at the top of the pendulum with a
living mouse on it, we will add high unpredictable
noise to the system. And the controller will still
be able to maintain the stick in the vertical posi-
tion.
Let us consider again the two problems pre-
sented in the introduction. First, the local approx-
imation accuracy degree. For a fuzzy controller,
the 'quality' of the approximation depends on the
level of granularity of the linguistic variables (the
A i and B,. variables), that is the number and the
size of the patches in Fig. 1. For instance, a speed
parameter can be described with only three terms
like {slow, normal, fast}. But, it may be necessary
better to have a high granularity level around the
equilibrium point so that it is possible to have a
smooth control. The second problem, which is
having an approximation all over the perceptual
space, is solved if at least one rule is active for
each sensor value. If no rule is active (which
means that all the activation strengths are null),
then no commands are sent and the plant will
follow its own dynamic.
After this short fuzzy logic control presenta-
system we have done on our mobile robot in
LIFIA.
3.2. The LIFIA fuzzy navigation controller
The prima team in LIFIA has developed an
architecture for mobile robots (Fig. 7). It is a
hierarchy of layers, each one working asyn-
chronously, at its own speed, with its own level of
data abstraction. More details can be found in
[5,6,7,4]. The navigation module consits of a reac-
tive module based on fuzzy logic. The LIFIA
mobile robot has two independent powered
wheels. To be able to achieve coordinated mo-
tion, we have developed a standard vehicle con-
troller providing asynchronous independent con-
trol of forward displacement and orientation [7].
The available commands for movements are move
(distance, speed, acceleration), turn (orientation,
speed, acceleration) and stop (). The output vari-
ables used for the navigation module are the
classical translation speed and orientation of the
vehicle. The depth measures are currently pro-
vided by a ring of 24 ultrasonic sensors dis-
tributed around the robot. Each sensor could be
considered as an input variable but it will give a
very huge perceptual space. It is not easy to pilot
the robot considering those 24 numerical values
because it is hard to apprehend so many informa-
tions. So, it will not be easy to write the rules.
Some preprocessing is necessary to reduce the
amount of data. Sensors are classified into four
groups: in front, behind, on the left, and on the
right. For each group, we only keep the smallest
depth measure (Fig. 8). We have not yet given the
 P. Reignier/ Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153 149

tion from the robot. So, finally, we have 5 input

Man-Machine and 2 output variables.
Interface The next step is to build a linguistic database
to describe the values. For the depth measures
Supervisor for instance, we have a very low level of granular-
ity with only two sets: near and far. But, because
the danger is not the same, the near describing
1
the distance of an obstacle in front of the vehicle
Locomotion > Perception is not the same as the near describing the dis-
Actions Actions tance of an obstacle on the left, for instance.
The whole perceptual space must be covered
by the rules, which means that at least one rule
must have a non-zero activation strength for each
Vehicle < \ Local perceptual entry. A systematic way to do that is
Control ~\, > Modeling to create a rule for each combination of the
linguistic sets, that is if input variable A is de-
scribed by A 1, A 2 and B by B1, BE, then, there
are four rules (A1, B1, YI), (A1, BE, Y2),
Motor t I Sensor Data ( A 2 , B1, Y3) a n d ( A 2 , BE, Y4), w h e r e
Control Description
(Yl, Y2, Y3, Y4) are the linguistic sets for the out-
put variable Y. For our application, the number
Motors Range Sensors of rules is about 3,000, even with the low granu-
larity level of description used for distance (only
far and near). With a higher granularity level
1 : high level navigation (like 5 sets for each variable, a level often used in
2 : reactive navigation applications), there are over 1,000,000 rules. To
reduce this number, a solution is to suppress one
Fig. 7. The LIFIA mobile robot architecture.
or several variables on the left part of the rules.
Instead of producing directly a small cube, the
rules will then produce a whole slice in the per-
possibility to the vehicle to do some manoeuvres. ceptual space. The combination of those slices
The behind sensor group is not used in this when they overlap will produce the small cubes.
application. In Fig. 9, two rules are producing five cubes (five
The aim of the controller is to reach a Carte- rules). So there are less rules and less flexibility,
sian point. We add two other input variables too, for describing the surface. An intermediate
which are the goal distance and the goal orienta- result, computed without considering a parame-
ter value can be seen as the output of a behavior
and the rule fusion, combining the intermediate
results into the final one, can be seen as behavior
fusion. To provide some flexibility, each behavior
is assigned a weight (in [0,1]) to classify them
([13,14]). This weight is multiplied by the activa-
. X Sensor mca.sur~ tion strength of the rule (coming from the left
side) to give the final activation strength used to
+ +"',+,,~r'+,++~ compute the rule effect (the right side) (see Fig. 4
Robot
for the activation strength definition). An impor-
Fig. 8. Sensor input variables. The 24 s e n s o r s are divided into tant thing to notice is that, if we have a behavior
four groups: in front, behind, left, right. B 1 with a weight a~ and a behavior B 2 with a
150 P. Reignier / Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153

input2 (dealing with the three sensor groups depth mea-

output
if inputl is A then output is Ol
if input2 is B then output is 0 2
02
O1
A
inputl
Fig. 9. Using several rules instead of just one. The combina-
tion of 01 and 0 2 (the grey cube) on the overlapping zone
between A x ~ and a~ X B should be equal to the result of
the rule if input 1 is A and input 2 is B then output is 0 3
(the grey cube).
weight a 2 such that oq > a2, it means that B 1
will be more easily dominating B 2 but it will not
always dominate it. A behaviour with a strong
weight and a weak activation strength can finally
be less active than a behavior with a weak weight
and a strong activation strength. In the navigation
controller, we have created two main behaviors:
one to reach the goal (dealing with the distance
and the orientation of the goal in relation to the
vehicle) and the other avoiding the obstacles
sures). With the simple obstacle description we
have (three sensor groups and two linguistic sets
f a r and near), there are 8 perceptual situations
(see Fig. 10). Then, we associate a reaction to
each of these situations except for the 'far' situa-
tion where we do not want to do anything (and
then, only the reach goal behavior will be active).
For instance, in a 'left-corner' case, we stop the
vehicle and turn it to the right. In a corridor
situation, we go straight ahead, etc. These 8 situ-
ations with their responses can be seen as behav-
iors. Each one has a different weight. For in-
stance, the 'in front near' behavior has the maxi-
mum weight of 1 because it is vital for the robot
to stop. The 'reach goal' behavior has the lowest
weight because it is more important to avoid
obstacles than to reach the goal. Let us suppose,
for instance, that every obstacle is far away. Then,
only the 'reach goal' behavior will be active. The
robot is now approaching an obstacle to its left.
The activation level of the 'left near' behavior
will increase smoothly. This behavior will tell the
robot to stop and to turn right while the 'reach
goal' behavior will tell it to go on. So it will just
reduce its speed and turn a little bit to the right.
If it is not enough, the activation level of the
l e f t - n e a r will still increase, etc. If necessary, the
l e f t - n e a r activation will take over the reach-goal

Far left near fight near left comer

fight corner infront near corridor blocked corridor

Fig. 10. There are 8 different perceptual situations. A different reaction is associated to each of these situations.
 P. Reignier/ Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153 151

each Goal

ft near

Goal

Robot

wall
Fig. 11. In the left figure, the robot oscillates because there is one predominant behavior at each time. In the right screen,
behaviors are merged and the robot can follow the wall staying parallel to it.

activation and the robot will not just slow down
but will really stop and turn right. Because of a
fuzzy rules mechanism, there is a smooth transi-
tion between the behaviors which should gener-
ate smooth movements. A similar approach has
been used in [2]. But, the different perceptual
situations are detected using a neural network
instead of rules. Only one is active at each time
with no smooth transition between 'behaviors'.
The defuzzyfication method we have chosen is
the center of area. The whole controller has been
implemented in C. It permits to use various
fuzzyfication, inference and defuzzyfication meth-
ods. Its period is 2 seconds but it could be much
lower (fuzzy controllers are easy to program and
have (low computing cost).
The final step is to tune the controller, which
means adjusting the shape of the membership
functions of the linguistic sets and adjusting the
weights of the behaviors. There is no theory on
how to do that manually, especially if the func-
tion we want to approximate is unknown. It must

\ I--1

Fig. 12. Obstacle avoidance in an unknown cluttered environment.

152 P. Reignier /Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153
be done through experiments. A compromise
must be found. Membership functions can be
adjusted so that there is only one predominant
behavior at each time. This is easy to do but there
are no smooth trajectories. Or membership func-
tions can be adjusted so that there are always
several behaviors competing. This is hard to tune,
but then there are smooth trajectories. For in-
stance, let us consider oscillations. We suppose
that there is only one predominant behavior at
each time. The goal is behind the wall (see Fig.
11). When the robot will be in front of the wall,
the 'in front' behavior will tell it to turn right
until the wall is on its left. Then, the 'left turn'
will tell it to turn right again. When the wall is
behind, the 'reach goal' will ask the robot to turn
left and so, to face the wall again etc. This causes
oscillations. With multi-behaviors active at each
time, the robot can reach (if the rules are tuned
correctly) an equilibrium line where the turn right
and turn left have the same strength.
Experiments have been carried out both on a
simulator and on the real robot. As our simulator
is a simple kinematic simulator with no dynamic
at all, the rules had to be tuned again when used
on the real robot. The screen-dumps bellow are
from the simulator. Fig. 12 shows the robot navi-
gating through a cluttered environment, starting
from the left bottom corner and trying to reach
'S
,/
\ #
Fig. 13. Some traditional problems. In the left screen, the robot managed to get out and find another way with more free space. But
it could have have been trapped into this local minima. The right screen shows some oscillation problems.
the upper right one. The robot has no a priori
knowledge of this environment. It discovers it
while moving using only the very simple sensory
model described above (the three sensor groups).
But there are still some oscillations and it some-
times falls into local minima (Fig. 13).
4. C o n c l u s i o n and future works
Reactive navigation can be seen as a mapping
between a perceptual and a command space. It
can be determined either by selecting a mapping
inside a whole family of functions (potential fields)
or by trying to build it using 'universal approxi-
mators' (neural networks, fuzzy logic). The func-
tions proposed by the potential field approaches
have still problems like oscillations or local min-
ima. Fuzzy logic gives the opportunity to sculpt
the mapping using the knowledge available of the
process control. Experiments with the mobile
robot show that it is possible to build quite easily
a reactive navigation, but still the classical prob-
lems remain (oscillations and local minima).
Those two categories of approaches have their
own problems. They are not easy to tune for a
particular perceptual situation (avoiding oscilla-
tions for wall following etc.) and as it is impossi-
ble to plan every situations, they do not propose a
I I
 P. Reignier / Robotics and Autonomous Systems 12 (1994) 143-153
mapping available for the whole perceptual space.
A navigation system tuned in a particular envi-
ronment (in a robotic room, for instance) can give
poor results in another place. A reliable naviga-
tion system, working in 'every' situation needs a
learning capability. First, it needs to learn the
shape of M in particular situations (how to react
when following a wall, for instance) and then, it
needs to learn these reactions for every situation
(every region of the perceptual space). Neural
network approaches have already given very im-
pressive results like driving a car [15]. Supervised
learning poses the problem of generating exam-
pies, but reinforcement learning seems very ade-
quate for these problems letting the robot make
its experiments ([3, 16, 10]). The system is always
learning and should improve through time. As
learning from 'scratch' is not realistic, some ini-
tial knowledge must be used. Fuzzy logic is a very
good candidate for that task. It is easy to build a
reactive navigation system that will make the
robot move in a room, and because of the intrin-
sic structure of a fuzzy controller, it is possible to
code it as a neural network and then let the
learning process adjust it to reduce obstacle colli-
sions and to make the robot reach its goal.
References
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Patrick Reignier completed the Di-
plome d'Etude Approfondies in 1989 at
the Ecole Nationale Sup~rieure d'In-
formatique et de Math6matiques Ap-
pliqu~es (ENSIMAG) on trajectory
planning and execution among mov-
ing obstacles. He is currently complet-
ing his doctoral studies at the LIFIA
laboratory of the INPG, under the
direction of Professor Crowley. The
doctoral thesis of Patrick Reignier
concerns reactive control of a mobile
robot in a dynamic environment. In
this thesis, he proposes a comparison between different for-
malisms for locomotion behaviors.