Autonomous Path Planning

Abstract

Path Planning refers to the search for the most optimal path that is subjected to a certain optimization criteria or criterion (shortest walking path, shortest travel time, etc.) and could avoid obstacles from an initial state to a target state. Path planning is one of the key technologies of unmanned systems. Almost every task implementation involves path planning. At the same time, path planning involves many complex technologies and operations such as environmental model building, lane changing, cornering, intersection operations, and most importantly, obstacle avoidance. Path planning algorithms are also widely adopted in many other fields of application, not just in the field of the mobile robots. Applications in the advanced technology fields include the UAV’s obstacle-avoidance flight, the cruise missile avoidance radar search, the anti-bounce attack, and the completion of the blasting tasks. Applications in daily life include the GPS navigation, the GIS-based road planning, the urban road network planning and navigation. Applications in the field of decision management include the vehicle routing problem (VRP) in vehicular logistics management, resource management and resource allocation problems, and routing problems in the field of communication technology. Fundamentally, any planning problem that can be topologically be represented as points, edges and a network can be solved by the path planning method.