Hybrid Path Planning Based on Safe A* Algorithm and Adaptive Window Approach for Mobile Robot in Large-Scale Dynamic Environment

Abstract

When mobile robot used in large-scale dynamic environments, it face more challenging problems in real-time path planning and collision-free path tracking. This paper presents a new hybrid path planning method that combines A* algorithm with adaptive window approach to conduct global path planning, real-time tracking and obstacles avoidance for mobile robot in large-scale dynamic environments. Firstly, a safe A* algorithm is designed to simplify the calculation of risk cost function and distance cost. Secondly, key path points are extracted from the planned path which generated by the safe A* to reduce the number of the grid nodes for smooth path tracking. Finally, the real-time motion planning based on adaptive window approach is adopted to achieve the simultaneous path tracking and obstacle avoidance (SPTaOA) together the switching of the key path points. The simulation and practical experiments are conducted to verify the feasibility and performance of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed hybrid path planning method, used for global path planning, tracking and obstacles avoidance, can meet the application needs of mobile robots in complex dynamic environments.