Quantitative Performance Metrics for Mobile Robots Navigation

Mobile robots navigation involves the design of navigation algorithms. There are several navigation methods for mobile robots and every time a new navigation algorithm is proposed, some comparisons with traditional algorithms are usually made, but there isn’t set of benchmarks globally accepted to assess the performance of algorithms. Despite the wide variety of studies and research on robot navigation systems, performance measures are often neglected in this research area, which makes it difficult to make an objective performance comparison (Wong et al., 2002); in general, use of quantitative metrics is limited to measuring the length of the path or the time needed by the robot to complete the task. Additionally, the lack of consensus on how to define or measure these systems impedes rigor and prevents evaluation of progress in this field and compare its different capabilities (Evans & Messina, 2000). As the degree of complexity in robotics is increasing, becomes necessary to establish proper approaches and benchmarking procedures, mainly for two reasons: first, reliable benchmarking is necessary in order to allow the comparison of the many robotics research results seeking this way to enable their industrial application. Second, to position the robotics as a serious science is important to consider the replication of experiments, i.e., it is important to verify whether a new procedure or algorithm proposed is really a breakthrough that can be used in new applications. This would be achieved only if it is determined which are the appropriate benchmarking procedures that allow to compare the actual practical results with reference to standard accepted procedures (Eurongemsig, 2008). However, by applying navigation comparison metrics of a mobile robot, such as the length of trajectory (path), collision risk and smoothness of trajectory, using a protocol, that is in a systematic and ordered way, works on mobile robots navigation algorithms can be systematized, and this will help researchers to decide which algorithm should be implemented in the vehicle. This chapter describes aspects related with a procedure used for the performance evaluation of mobile robots navigation algorithms. First, several performance metrics used in the navigation of mobile robots are described, then, the protocol to be followed in the performance evaluation is defined, finally, the results are presented. To illustrate the procedure, we used simulation software. 24