Combining turning point detection and Dijkstra’s algorithm to search the shortest path

Abstract

In this study, image processing was combined with path-planning object-avoidance technology to determine the shortest path to the destination. The content of this article comprises two parts: in the first part, image processing was used to establish a model of obstacle distribution in the environment, and boundary sequence permutation method was used to conduct orderly arrangement of edge point coordinates of all objects, to determine linking relationship between each edge point, and to individually classify objects in the image. Then, turning point detection method was used to compare the angle size between vectors before and after each edge point and to determine vertex coordinates of polygonal obstacles. In the second part, a modified Dijkstra’s algorithm was used to turn vertices of convex-shaped obstacles into network nodes, to determine the shortest path by a cost function, and to find an obstacle avoidance path connecting the start and end points. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed architecture, an obstacle avoidance path simulation was made by the graphical user interface of the programming language MATLAB. The results show that the proposed method in path planning not only is feasible but can also obtain good results.