Autonomous Navigation of Mobile Robots: A Hierarchical Planning–Control Framework with Integrated DWA and MPC

In human-robot collaborative environments, the inherent complexity of shared operational spaces imposes dual requirements on process safety and task execution efficiency. To address the limitations of conventional approaches that decouple planning and control modules, we propose a hierarchical planning-control framework. The proposed framework explicitly incorporates path tracking constraints during path generation while simultaneously considering path characteristics in the control process. The framework comprises two principal components: (1) an enhanced Dynamic Window Approach (DWA) for the local path planning module, introducing adaptive sub-goal selection method and improved path evaluation functions; and (2) a modified Model Predictive Control (MPC) for the path tracking module, with a curvature-based reference state online changing strategy. Comprehensive simulation and real-world experiments demonstrate the framework's operational advantages over conventional methods.