Improved a Search Algorithm for Path Planning of Mobile Robots

Abstract

Path planning has a wide range of application in video games, GPS based applications, mobilerobotic etc. Autonomous mobile robot is used for doing hazardous task which is dangerous andhard to handle for people. Efficient path planning is basic requirement for mobile robot. Aimingat problem of path finding an improved version of A* algorithm is proposed. In A* algorithm thecost of cells is only calculated by the sum of actual cheapest cost of a cell from starting cell and aheuristic value which is estimated cheapest cost from the cell to goal cell. But adding theheuristic value of parent node to cost function can improve the performance of algorithm.Adding heuristic value of parent node with the cost of a cell help the algorithm to find it pathmore purposefully. A robot can move to any cell adjacent to it. So there are eight possible movefrom a particular cell. And all of them is not optimal. So by selecting the optimal cell alwayshelps to reach the goal soon. In an improved version of A* algorithm heuristic value of parentnode of a particular node is used to evaluate the cost of a function which perform better than A*algorithm. In this research an new improved version of A* algorithm is proposed where priorityof optimal cell is reduced to get more priority and heuristic value of parent node of current nodeis added with the cost of cells. To increase the priority of optimal cell a value is added with therest of cell. This value is calculated with the help of heuristic value. If a cell is closer to the goalthan this value will be lower for it. This method is efficient than A* algorithm and previousversion of improved A* algorithm. It can find path sooner than the typical A* algorithm andprevious version of improved A* algorithm.