Path planner for a mobile shape-changeable intelligent robot in a 3-dimensional environment

Abstract

This study concentrates on three sub-problems of the path planning problem. The first one is the representation of the robot and the environment in which it moves. The environment is represented according to a given map of boundaries and obstacles. The second sub-problem is to find the optimal path for the robot according to its initial and final positions. Optimal path means the path with minimum total hardness faced by the robot through its route. The third sub-problem is about determining the course of actions to be followed by the robot through the candidate route. The work reported in this paper is about building a complete system that solves the above mentioned sub-problems. Object oriented expert system shell is the main tool that was used in implementing this system.