Multi-Waypoint Path Planning and Motion Control for Non-holonomic Mobile Robots in Agricultural Applications

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ghorab, Mahmoud, Lorenzen, Matthias
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Ghorab, Mahmoud
Lorenzen, Matthias
author_facet Ghorab, Mahmoud
Lorenzen, Matthias
contents There is a growing demand for autonomous mobile robots capable of navigating unstructured agricultural environments. Tasks such as weed control in meadows require efficient path planning through an unordered set of coordinates while minimizing travel distance and adhering to curvature constraints to prevent soil damage and protect vegetation. This paper presents an integrated navigation framework combining a global path planner based on the Dubins Traveling Salesman Problem (DTSP) with a Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) strategy for local path planning and control. The DTSP generates a minimum-length, curvature-constrained path that efficiently visits all targets, while the NMPC leverages this path to compute control signals to accurately reach each waypoint. The system's performance was validated through comparative simulation analysis on real-world field datasets, demonstrating that the coupled DTSP-based planner produced smoother and shorter paths, with a reduction of about 16% in the provided scenario, compared to decoupled methods. Based thereon, the NMPC controller effectively steered the robot to the desired waypoints, while locally optimizing the trajectory and ensuring adherence to constraints. These findings demonstrate the potential of the proposed framework for efficient autonomous navigation in agricultural environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_23350
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multi-Waypoint Path Planning and Motion Control for Non-holonomic Mobile Robots in Agricultural Applications
Ghorab, Mahmoud
Lorenzen, Matthias
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
Systems and Control
There is a growing demand for autonomous mobile robots capable of navigating unstructured agricultural environments. Tasks such as weed control in meadows require efficient path planning through an unordered set of coordinates while minimizing travel distance and adhering to curvature constraints to prevent soil damage and protect vegetation. This paper presents an integrated navigation framework combining a global path planner based on the Dubins Traveling Salesman Problem (DTSP) with a Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) strategy for local path planning and control. The DTSP generates a minimum-length, curvature-constrained path that efficiently visits all targets, while the NMPC leverages this path to compute control signals to accurately reach each waypoint. The system's performance was validated through comparative simulation analysis on real-world field datasets, demonstrating that the coupled DTSP-based planner produced smoother and shorter paths, with a reduction of about 16% in the provided scenario, compared to decoupled methods. Based thereon, the NMPC controller effectively steered the robot to the desired waypoints, while locally optimizing the trajectory and ensuring adherence to constraints. These findings demonstrate the potential of the proposed framework for efficient autonomous navigation in agricultural environments.
title Multi-Waypoint Path Planning and Motion Control for Non-holonomic Mobile Robots in Agricultural Applications
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.23350