Global and Local Path Planning Study in a ROS-Based Research Platform for Autonomous Vehicles

The aim of this work is to integrate and analyze the performance of a path planning method based on Time Elastic Bands (TEB) in real research platform based on Ackermann model. Moreover, it will be proved that all modules related to the navigation can coexist and work together to achieve the goal point without any collision. The study is done by analyzing the trajectory generated from global and local planners. The software prototyping tool is Robot Operating System (ROS) from Open Source Robotics Foundation and the research platform is the iCab (Intelligent Campus Automobile) from University Carlos III. This work has been validated from a test inside the campus where the iCab has performed the navigation between the starting point and the goal point without any collision. During the experiment, we proved the low sensitivity of the TEB method to variations of the vehicle model configuration and constraints.