LiDAR-Based Local Path Planning Method for Reactive Navigation in Underground Mines

Abstract

Reactive navigation is the most researched navigation technique for underground vehicles. Local path planning is one of the main research difficulties in reactive navigation. At present, no technique can perfectly solve the problem of local path planning for the reactive navigation of underground vehicles. Aiming to address this problem, this paper proposes a new method for local path planning based on 2D LiDAR. First, we convert the LiDAR data into a binary image, and we then extract the skeleton of the binary image through a thinning algorithm. Finally, we extract the centerline of the current laneway from these skeletons and smooth the obtained roadway centerline as the current planned local path. Experiments show that the proposed method has high robustness and good performance. Additionally, the method can also be used for the global path planning of underground maps.