Target Approaching Control Under a GPS-Denied Environment with Range-Only Measurements

Area of Science:

• Robotics and Control Systems
• Autonomous Navigation

Background:

• Vehicle control systems often require complex sensor data like GPS or lidar.
• Local control strategies are essential for navigation in environments with limited information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a target-approaching control strategy for discrete-time systems using only range measurements.
• To ensure reliable convergence to a circular target region without absolute positioning.

Main Methods:

• A novel local controller utilizing range measurements at two consecutive sampling instants.
• The controller maintains constant velocity if distance decreases, otherwise rotates velocity by π/2 clockwise.

Main Results:

• Guaranteed convergence to the target region for the vehicle system.
• Velocity direction adjusted at most three times in the worst-case scenario.
• Theoretical validation supported by outdoor mobile vehicle experiments.

Conclusions:

• The proposed range-only control strategy is effective for target approaching.
• This method offers a robust and simple solution for autonomous navigation with limited sensing capabilities.