Path planning of indoor mobile robot based on improved A* algorithm incorporating RRT and JPS

Abstract

Indoor mobile robots are widely used in modern industry. Traditional motion control methods for robots suffer from discontinuous path curvature, low planning efficiency, and insufficient verification of theoretical algorithms. Therefore, a motion control system for an intelligent indoor robot was designed. By optimizing the radar map detecting and positioning, path planning, and chassis motion control, the performance of the system has been improved. First, a map of the warehouse environment is established, and the number of resampling particles interval is set for the Gmapping building process to improve the efficiency of map construction. Second, an improved A* algorithm is proposed, which converts the path solution with obstacles between two points into the path solution without obstacles between multiple points based on the Rapidly expanding Random Trees and Jump Point Search algorithms and further improves the pathfinding speed and efficiency of the A* algorithm by screening the necessary expansion nodes. The Dynamic Window Approach (DWA) algorithm based on the dynamic window is used to smooth the path, and the target velocity is reasonably assigned according to the kinematic model of the robot to ensure the smooth motion of the chassis. By establishing raster map models of different sizes, the traditional and improved A* pathfinding algorithms are compared and validated. The results illustrate that the improved pathfinding algorithm reduces the computing time by 67% and increases the pathfinding speed by 47% compared with the A* algorithm. Compared with the traditional method, the speed and effect are greatly improved, and the motion control system can meet the requirements of autonomous operation of mobile robots in indoor storage.