A simplified cost function heuristic applied to the A*-based path planning. (2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Silva, Jefferson B.B.; Siebra, Clauirton A.; Nascimento, Tiago P.
• Is Part Of: International journal of computer applications technology. Volume 54:Number 2(2016)
• Page Start: 96
• Page End: 105
• Publication Date: 2016
• Subjects: pathfinder -- heuristics -- cost function -- robot path planning -- mobile robots -- autonomous navigation -- robot navigation -- trajectory generation; Technology -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 620.00285
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0952-8091

Abstract

An important task for mobile robots is autonomous navigation, where a robot travels between two locations without the need of human intervention. This task can be described as a planning path problem, whose purpose is to define sequential segments of state transitions from an initial to a final goal. This paper investigates a family of trajectory generation algorithms (A*), which are commonly used in path planning for static environments, stressing their main properties. Then, it is presented as a simplified cost function heuristic that is used to optimise the results presented in the original approaches. The comparison of the main algorithms is carried out via a set of experiments, which show that the proposed heuristic reduces the computational cost of the search, the amount of expanded cells and mainly the time required to locate targets.