World representation and path planning for a mobile robot

Abstract

SUMMARYThis paper is related to the problem of navigation of a mobile robot amidst obstacles. In order to easily take into account any modification of the environment, we propose a very simple representation of the obstacles, based on the use of rectangles, as well as a matrix description of the spatial relationships between the obstacles. We also present a path planner based on a A* algorithm, the features of which are specifically designed for our world of rectangles. The cost function takes into account both the length of the path and the number of turns. Some experimental results and implementation details are also given in this paper.