Path planning for mobile robots based on visibility graphs and A* algorithm

Abstract

One of most worked issues in the last years in robotics has been the study of strategies to path planning for mobile robots in static and observable conditions. This is an open problem without pre-defined rules (non-heuristic), which needs to measure the state of the environment, finds useful information, and uses an algorithm to select the best path. This paper proposes a simple and efficient geometric path planning strategy supported in digital image processing. The image of the environment is processed in order to identify obstacles, and thus the free space for navigation. Then, using visibility graphs, the possible navigation paths guided by the vertices of obstacles are produced. Finally the A* algorithm is used to find a best possible path. The alternative proposed is evaluated by simulation on a large set of test environments, showing in all cases its ability to find a free collision plausible path.