This paper presents a formation control of mobile robots with a large obstacle avoidance. The mobile robots considered in this paper have multiple sonars which are used for not only constructing formation but also avoiding obstacle. The novel modules overcoming the drawbacks of the previous navigation algorithm [6] are introduced to accomplish the obstacle avoidance and formation control. The effectiveness of the proposed techniques are demonstrated by an experiment using three mobile robots.

A local navigation technique with obstacle avoidance, called adaptive navigation, is proposed for mobile robots in which the dynamics of the robot are taken into consideration. The only information needed about the local environment is the distance between the robot and the obstacles in three specified directions. The navigation law is a first-order differential equation and navigation to the goal and obstacle avoidance are achieved by switching the direction angle of the robot. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated by means of simulation examples.