Occlusion-Aware Path Planning to Promote Infrared Positioning Accuracy for Autonomous Driving in a Warehouse

Abstract

Infrared positioning is a critical module in an indoor autonomous vehicle platform. In an infrared positioning system, the ego vehicle is equipped with an infrared emitter while the infrared receivers are fixed onto the ceiling. The infrared positioning result is accurate only when the number of valid infrared receivers is more than three. An infrared receiver easily becomes invalid if it does not receive light from the infrared emitter due to indoor occlusions. This study proposes an occlusion-aware path planner that enables an autonomous vehicle to navigate toward the occlusion-free part of the drivable area. The planner consists of four layers. In layer one, a homotopic A* path is searched for in the 2D grid map to roughly connect the initial and goal points. In layer two, a curvature-continuous reference line is planned close to the A* path using numerical optimal control. In layer three, a Frenet frame is constructed along the reference line, followed by a search for an occlusion-aware path within that frame via dynamic programming. In layer four, a curvature-continuous path is optimized via quadratic programming within the Frenet frame. A path planned within the Frenet frame may violate the curvature bounds in a real-world Cartesian frame; thus, layer four is implemented through trial and error. Simulation results in CarSim software show that the derived paths reduce the poor positioning risk and are easily tracked by a controller.